Day 40: Preparations

In 1998, I was dropped off at the airport in Moscow with two fat suitcases full of warm clothes. I had no idea I wouldn't be catching my plane to Nar'yan Mar that day. Sitting at the gate with a number of other travelers, I heard the overhead speaker say something in Russian that made everyone stand up and walk down the corridor. A woman came to me and said, "Come." I had no idea what else to do, so I went. I don't speak Russian, not really, though I had prepped for my three month teaching trip by taking a beginning Russian class.

Apparently the airport in Nar'yan Mar was experiencing something akin to the beginning of The Day After Tomorrow, where the helicopters froze in mid air. The temp had dropped to below minus 80 with a wind so swift all air traffic had been stopped and school canceled. The airport put all of my fellow travelers and I into a swanky hotel for the next three days.

When I was finally able to fly into Nar'yan Mar, the hoarfrost was incredibly thick on the trees, the Pechora River was a white field, and all humans were wrapped in double thicknesses of fur and wool. It had warmed to a balmy negative 50 with only an occasional light wind.

Tatiana Ivanevna handed me a fur hood and a pair of huge thick mittens. "You will need these, yours will not work." I had brought a pair of snowmobiling gloves a friend had given me as a farewell gift and a couple woolly hats and scarves. I made light of her assumption that all of my preparations were in vain and left her contributions to my personal warmth on the bed when we went out later that day.

By the time we had walked the block to the bus stop, my fingers and head were freezing. We ducked into a shop to wait for the bus. The bus came, so loaded with passengers that Tatiana Ivanevna had to shove me in. With her hands on my rump, she said, "if I don't make it on, your stop is the last stop, just get off there." This was my first day in Nar'yan Mar, this was the first day I had met Tatiana, this was the coldest I had ever been and the thought of getting off a bus in the middle of a beyond freezing nowhere, unable to speak and barely able to read the language scared the pants off me. When Tatiana stopped shoving, I emerged head and shoulders above a sea of fur capped Russians, packed in a bus with frosted over windows. Half an hour later, the bus had partially emptied and Tatiana Ivanevna sat next to me with a huge grin saying that she had barely made in on--she rode at the base of the stairs jammed against the door.

We got off on our stop, but discovered that classes were canceled because the pipes in the school were frozen. She showed me around and then we headed home. When we arrived home that night, I vowed never to go out without that fur hood and mittens. It took ages to get warm again. Nothing could have prepared me for that bitter cold, except someone who lived in it and a bit of humility.



Saturday evening we dined with a new group of friends. When our host, Jay, discovered that I am training for a triathlon, he told me of the time he had trained for a triathlon. He and a friend found a program that claimed to prepare them for the race. He said he expected it to get progressively harder, but it never did. The week before the race, Jay had to have emergency back surgery and had to withdraw. His friend, however, did compete and said later he thought he probably came in last. This is my biggest fear about my preparations, that I am not doing enough to get in shape for this thing.

Even though I am now running over 2 miles, swimming over a quarter mile, and cycling, I don't have the speed I feel I need to have. And I have no idea how to get that speed, except to ask my friends who do these things/have done these things.
Or maybe join a club...