I was crossing the street in downtown Ann Arbor yesterday when I noticed this robot-like figure. It’s my favorite kind of art: whimsical, unexpected, simple, makes you think and wonder.

It looks like he was created from the same material used to make the zebra stripes on the crosswalk. What is that stuff? Is it paint or some type of adhesive strip? I’m calling him the Zebra Stripe Dude.

Who made him? How did he get there? Are there more of them? In a place like Ann Arbor, there must be more.

$120 is just too much to pay for a pair of running shoes. But that’s what they’re charging for many of the makes and models at the stores that I always try to shop at. Most of these shoes are way over engineered and offer too much shoe for me. Bells and whistles, I have no use for them. All I need is a solid heel counter, soft slab of cushioning material (EVA or whatever they call it now) and a well-crafted upper with simple styling and colors (I won’t do neon, which seems to be in fashion now).  I usually buy the shoes on the third tier. My favorite part of the book Born to Run – indeed, a wonderful read – was when the author mentions that the track coach at Stanford or some other major school noticed that his athletes were getting injured all the time when they were running in the fancy shoes supplied by a big-name shoe company that sponsored his program. He switched to the company’s cheapest  shoes, and the problems stopped. I’ve had the same experience.

For the past eight years, I’ve been buying my running shoes at Kohl’s. I always get the ASICS (I still want to call them Tigers from the Ontisuka days), and they have yet to disappoint. Someone at ASICS knows exactly what my foot needs. They’re always on sale, at least 25 percent off. Today, I got a pair on sale for $44 (original price $80). My wife gave me a coupon that let me take an additional 30 percent off. I was a very happy man – spending as much as I did on the pair of New Balance 420s (damn they were great shoes) that I purchased in 1981. I feel bad about not patronizing the running specialty store. But with an expensive cycling habit to feed, I can’t afford to buy the $120 shoes that are keeping them in business. When they start selling the bottom-of-the-line ASICS, I’ll be there.

I ordered a GORE windstopper jacket on sale for $130 ($70 less than suggested retail price) from World Cycling Productions. It has a soft shell, insulated with fleece, that’s windproof and resists water. The optimal climate range is 35-50 degrees F.  Vents under the arms can be unzipped to regulate temperature. The back pockets are roomy and hold a water bottle easily. There’s a chest pocket for my phone/camera.

I just love the garment, and I don’t miss the bad old days last year when I had to wear  a base layer, arm warmers (sometimes two pairs), long-sleeve jersey and a wind vest. For 3-4 hour rides, I would want the flexibility of layering. But for the intense 1-2 hour rides that I’m doing in February (because it’s too damn cold to ride longer), the jacket is perfect.  I’ve also found that now that I’m keeping my core warmer, my hands and feet don’t seem to get as cold. My body can better circulate blood to the extremities when it’s not pooling it up for the core.

The only thing I don’t like about the jacket is that the color is more neon lemon limey than it appears on the website. But I can easily live with that.

Check out the moguls on this dirt road. I wonder how this happens. My first journalism job was at a small paper in central Missouri, where I covered the Boone County beat. Yes, that’s right: Boone as in Daniel Boone. One of the hot issues was whether to pave the rural roads in the county. It was a fascinating debate, and I learned so much about road construction and how a new road can change a place. I also grew to appreciate how constructing a proper road is such an impressive engineering feat. Now, I’m more intrigued by how nature breaks down a road.

First, my dog skidded a bit as she ran in front of me. A half second later, my feet were no longer beneath me and my ass was on a collision course with the sidewalk. I had just enough time to partly break my fall with my left hand. My first thought: ‘Damn, I didn’t see that patch of ice.’ My second thought: ‘Do a quick damage assessment. Everything OK? Slightly sore butt, no problem. Wrist is also sore but I’m able to move it.’ My dog looked at me like I’m a pathetic biped. I got up and we kept running. The plan was to do our hour-long Saturday run, followed by a half-hour interval workout on the rollers.

So far this winter, I’ve been lucky. The sidewalks haven’t been that icy, and I’ve had plenty of mornings when I woke up to a fresh layer of snow. I love to be the first one to lay down a fresh trail in the snow on my runs with Lexi the Airedale. I wrongly assumed that I didn’t have to worry too much about ice patches if I had a decent layer of fresh powder. That certainly was my operating assumption Saturday.

My second fall happened about 30 minutes into the run when I slipped on an off-camber section of sidewalk, which bodyslammed me on my right hip. It wasn’t too painful, and I got up right away and continued running. But about five minutes later, I went down again – hard. My legs slipped out from underneath me so fast that I didn’t have a chance to break my fall with my hands. My left elbow was called in to do that.

I sat on the sidewalk for a moment feeling a bit woozy. I might have hit the back of my head on the pavement, but I had a thick fleece headband that apparently cushioned the blow. My lower back, shoulder and neck seemed to be suffering early symptoms of whiplash.  The fall really shook me up, and I decided to walk the last mile home. About a block from my house, my dog went down on her left side crossing my neighbor’s off-camber driveway.

When I got home, I had the perfect reason to skip the roller workout. My body was sore and achy, as if I spent the last hour playing tackle football without pads on a frozen field. But I figured if I didn’t ride Saturday, I would probably also skip Sunday because the soreness would probably be worse the next day. I also thought I had a great opportunity to practice riding when I’m banged up; getting back on my bike after a crash and finishing a race. I did the roller workout and it felt great. Luckily, the pain and soreness could only be felt when I’m in an upright position. I felt fine when bent over on the bike. But damn, I wasn’t able to do the weight-lifting session I had planned for the weekend! What a shame!

The plan today was to ride hard for an hour, doing repeats on Joy Road, a ribbon of rolling hills amid horse farms and McMansions in Washtenaw County. The unknown factor, though, was the snow. Before the ride, I envisioned myself hammering along, my ‘cross tires digging into the layer of white powder that covered southeastern Michigan the past two days. When I got to Joy Road, I found a bianca strada. Oh yeah, it was plenty bianca. The unfortunate thing was that it was the bad kind of bianca. There was no powder. There was just a hard layer of hard-packed snow with strong ambitions to become ice. This made the crowned roads a bit treacherous. If  I didn’t ride exactly in the middle of the road, I was riding on a slightly off-camber slippery patch. A few times I hit a weird rut and almost lost control. Instead of riding to get a good hard workout, I was riding not to crash.

When I got to the end of Joy Road, I didn’t turn around for a repeat, as I had planned. I took a right onto a paved road clear of snow. Scuttling my plans to ride the remote snow-covered roads was a disappointment, but there was no real good choice. I ended up riding on pavement for an hour, then doing repeats up a long hill near my home. It was a cold day, with highs at -4 degrees C and lows at -8 degrees C. It didn’t bother me much. My old self, the one that spent the past 10 years in the subtropics, would have froze his butt off. But I guess I’m finally getting used to the North.

This certainly isn't me running in my bare legs in January! I snapped this photo while I waiting for my bus to work.

One problem was that by working out in the evening, I found myself running with my dog less often. Originally, I thought I’d take my dog for a jog in the morning. This never happened, though. I didn’t want to get my running shoes wet and have to pack the soggy kicks in my workout bag. And I didn’t want to spend money on a separate pair.  So my dog wasn’t getting the exercise she needs. I also really missed sharing the running experience with her. She just loves to get out on the road.

The other big problem was that I really don’t like to workout in the evening. I like to really chill after work. On the days I don’t run, I ride the rollers, and it really sucks to have to do this in the evening. I hate to have it hanging over my head, and often there’s too big of a temptation to skip it, drink a glass of wine instead.

So I’m back to working out in the morning. One wonderful thing about morning workouts is that my dog and I are usually the first ones out in the snow. The past two mornings, we ran on a fresh, fluffy white carpet of powder, with the air full of falling flurries. It was fantastic.

When I lived in Taiwan, local companies would occasionally  use Nazi-inspired imagery for a product or marketing campaign. One local firm selling space heaters (imported from Germany!) used a cartoon Hitler in ads that declared, “Wage war on the cold!” Sometimes I would see someone wearing a motorcycle helmet shaped like a Nazi helmet with the “SS” insignia. Yep, really poor taste.

When the tiny Jewish community complained about these things, the products were often taken off the market, and the companies would say it was just an innocent mistake. They would claim they didn’t know people would be so sensitive about such things. One Taiwanese friend pointed out to me that Westerners often wear jackets and shirts with the rising sun logo, something he found to be an example of extreme ignorance and insensitivity.

Anyway, don’t buy these t-shirts. You can find much more imaginative designs here. If I could get myself to plonk down $25 for a t-shirt, this is the one I’d go for:

1. Stay out of gyms and fitness centers, even during the tundra month of February. The world will continue to be my gym. Dealing with the elements is an essential part of the workout.

2. Become a better cold-weather rider. I’m getting there but I’ve got a long way to go.

3. Do more intervals. My natural inclination is to make every day a base-building day. But I truly enjoy intervals, when I force myself to do them.

4. Stop being a hermit and ride with the local bike club more often.

5. Keep my blog posts shorter. I’ll live up to this one right now…