What a concept!

I walk in the morning, usually with Paul, though he’s been off cosmopolizing again. Every other day, I get up early and shuffle. Tripping along slowly—my goal right now—in real cold requires more layers than actually running. A baselayer top or two under a midlayer and a windbreaker or softshell. Shorts on the bottom, maybe longjohns, and always a pair of SportHills (oddly, nearly identical to Ron Hills—I wonder if Sport and Ron are brothers). But here’s the kicker. Before I go back out to walk, most of this has to be pulled damply off and replaced if I’m not going to freeze in wet insulation while I’m walking. So yet another baselayer top, under an R1 Hoodie, under my new Mountain Hardware Compressor jacket (which is okay, by the way, but not as okay as my old Mammut Stratus). On the bottom, longjohns again, under R1 tights, under a wind layer. And I also use multiples in headgear, mitts, running flats/boots, and all that. I don’t have enough hangers or cubbies  for all this stuff, so I have piles. (Well, I don’t actually have piles, thank goodness, but I do toss things into mounds. By the time I’m finished shuffling and strolling and have stripped down to enjoy breakfast, it looks like a bomb has gone off in a Siberian haberdashery.)

Hah! But now there is a drying rack in a corner of the kitchen! Brilliant. Amazing the things some people think of.