Feb 19 – Day 51 on Ice

Weather: Cold, with very low winds. Clear skies to partly cloudy. Temps -55F with windchill near -80F.

Since the winds were low, I had to go outside for a cold weather run. It’s rare that winds are steadily below 5mph and that makes a huge difference in staying warm. Put in about 7 miles toward my ‘Run to McMurdo’ challenge! Roads are still nicely compacted (although there are some decent drifts you need to look out for). Now I only have about 820 miles to go!

It’s an interesting experience, running in this cold… I’m not sure how best to describe it. Running is usually pretty meditative for me, but this is different. Maybe because of the balaclava, and hat, and goggles. The sounds you hear are different than usual. The crunch of the snow is muffled, the sound of your breath amplified as it rushes past the frozen edge of the facemask. I feel more machine than human, like a steam locomotive each exhalation creating a huge puff of frozen steam. The feeling of being fully covered, some parts of the body frozen, others soaked in sweat, is a bit disconcerting. As my pants start to freeze, I become slightly nervous. I know that if I stop running, I will certainly freeze entirely within a few minutes. Knowing how to thermalize properly is difficult. Not to freeze, and not to sweat. It’s a fine line. Another difficult decision is whether or not to completely cover one’s face. I feel claustrophobic with my mouth covered, so I leave a small hole through which to breathe. This, of course, means breathing directly in -55F air (or whatever temperature it is). The cold air intake is brutal not only on my lungs, but on my lips, and my tongue as well. My mouth generates more saliva to keep it from freezing, but that makes it harder to breathe, so I work a delicate balance trying not to freeze my tongue but also not choking on saliva. One of the worst parts, which I have still not figured out, is how to keep my goggles from freezing over. Today I made a nose protector out of duct tape (to try and keep the exhaled moisture from flowing up into the goggles, and to keep the wind off of my nose), but that still didn’t seem to work. Even just sweat from my head underneath the goggles will tend to freeze up in them, so I’m not sure how to fix that.. and I need to protect my eyes/face from the cold as well, so I need something there!

As far as work goes, the telescope is telescoping very smoothly right now. Yay!