Workouts in Ironwood's Crown Jewel

The latest polar vortex and the mild (single-digit) weather between vortices have curtailed my running. Yesterday the mercury rose to a torrid zero. I observed a woman running down McLeod Avenue against the wind of fifteen to twenty-five miles per hour. The chill was in the minus twenty-five to minus thirty-five degree range. The woman was thinly dressed in tights and some kind of light parka, a ski mask over her face. I don't have any tights and my parka is military surplus survival gear so I don't run when the wind chill has reached insane proportions. My last run outside about a week ago was in sixteen degree weather with light winds, ideal running weather.


My polar vortex running is done inside, in the Memorial Building, Ironwood's crown Jewel. I train in a  subterranean gym, constructed in the early 1920s. It has a balcony for spectators and the floor is a regulation basketball court. An adjacent locker room facilitates a change into shorts and a t-shirt and a hoodie until my body warms up. I store my snowmobile bibs and survival parka and heavy Sorel boots in my favorite lockers. Yes, I have a little OCD that makes it important that I use 2 particular lockers, sixth from the end, one locker above the other.

This morning the gym was illuminated by the cloudy day showing through windows on the west and north sides of the gym. The windows are about fifteen feet above the gym floor. The east wall separates the gym from the swimming pool that has been inactive since economic conditions prohibited its continued use. Above the gym and pool, in the first floor is the auditorium with a stage and a hardwood floor. The balcony is wonderfully appointed by stained-glass windows and individual armchair seats.

I had tried to pace off the boundaries of the basketball court but I didn't think that my pacing gave an accurate judge of the distance covered with each workout. I had initiated a routine of running the gym floor seven times, with each run a little closer to the opposite sideline. I judged that if I repeated this nine times (63 sprints the length of the court) I had covered a mile. I finally remembered to take my twenty-foot tape rule along and measured the court which turned out to be 40' by 80'. A little math showed that it took 66 sprints to a mile so my estimate was close. I ran a total of  198 sprints, equivalent to 3 miles. I ran 2 miles , then played basketball, shooting until I made a shot then running to the other end and repeating for fifteen minutes. then I ran another mile and the estimated equivalent was four miles including the basketball interlude.

It was chilly in the gym due to the brutal conditions outside. Even with the overhead heaters blowing it was still cold so had had my hoodie on for the first half-mile.

When the Memorial Building was constructed  in 1922, I think, there probably would have been intramural games, as the present high school hadn't been built yet. Maybe the St. Ambrose catholic high school played there. At any rate I envisioned the facilities, pool and gym used with great enthusiasm when this building was new.

The whole building was renovated several years ago and the basketball floor refinished. Modern basketball goals replaced the 1920s goals.

I love the quietness of the gym. The sounds of city administration and the Social Security office do not reach down the two flights of stairs and 33 stairs to the gym. Sometimes I sit on a sideline bench, enjoying the solitude. sometimes I pray. The quietness makes my workout a calming mini-retreat.

Strange that I should find running as one of my passions. As a kid I struggled through gym class with an asthmatic wheeze. Even as a young adult I did not have the stamina for basketball or for running one city block. I'll give science part of the credit in developing medicines that freed me from my asthmatic burden. Working only two or three days a week gives me the time to run.

There's a thrill in hearing my footfalls on the hardwood court as I accelerate and decelerate. I'm challenging myself with more speed bursts and longer runs and I've grown to love the burn in my calves early in each run. This burn tells me I can't go another step and somehow in the first half mile the muscles warm up and oxygenate and I'm in overdrive.

It will probably be brutally cold again tomorrow, so I'll be back,  Lord willing.

Never at a Convenient Time

The kitchen thermometer read minus 20 and the sign on the Uptown Cafe was swinging. By the arc of each swing I estimated 25 m.p.h. with gusts to thirty. The clanging wind chimes on our front porch underscored the warning. The wind chill was unthinkable. I had finished my outdoor work, walking the dogs, shoveling the snow and stoking the fire. I'd had my supper and reclined in my recliner. The house was at 73 degrees and I had my Kindle ready to sooth my tired bones with music.

The heavenly voices of Benedictine nuns singing chants, which is my kind of Christian music, wrapped my soul in comfort. For years I felt guilt over preferring this music over the kind of worship-team music prevalent in  churches, performed at a decibel level at the threshold of pain, all part of the current bombastic style of worship.

The sweet voices of the nuns carried me to the cusp of sleep when the doorbell rang and the dogs exploded into apoplectic  barks and howls warning us that Jack the Ripper was at the door. Lois answered the door, closing the inner door keeping the dogs at bay.

After a brief exchange Lois returned, "It's the next-door neighbors. Their car won't start and I told them that you'd come out and help them." I took my headphones off and sat up, thinking of how much work it takes to get bundled up, probably akin to the astronauts when they go outside of the International Space Station to do their repair work. Nonetheless I bundled up in snowmobile bibs, Sorel boots, military surplus parka and choppers.

My faithful F-150 truck rumbled to life and I let it run for a few minutes before heading around the block to the helpless Chevy Trailblazer. I opened the hood of my truck and then took out the sixteen foot jumper cables Lois had given me for Christmas. (There's a story behind that.) The Chevy had a side-terminal battery and I struggled to connect to the battery with my hands protected in choppers with double liners. The cold air made my arthritic knuckles burn. 

I nodded at Jeremy inside the car to try it. No heartbeat. The ground cable was connected to a part of the under-hood frame that was covered in plastic. A headlamp was strapped to my Kromer hat and I searched out a suitable metal ground. It started this time but died right away. I told Jeremy to step on the gas when it started and to turn off the radio and automatic headlights.

My hands were now cold inside my choppers and I went inside my truck to slightly rev the engine. I held my burning hands in front of the dash vents.Then I went out again and told Jeremy to try it, reminding him to step on the gas once the motor started. The motor came to life and roared as Jeremy stepped on the gas.

Jeremy and his significant other, Alice a black woman, heartily expressed thanks and I basked in the glow as I took off the cables. 

Jeremy has some disorder that makes his hands shake, Parkinsonian-style. In October he asked me if I would do their snow-removal this winter and I agreed. Jeremy offered no remuneration and I don't want any. 

I took Alleve for my aching hands. Lois sat at her computer and didn't look up. I returned to my music and thanked God that the Chevy had started.