RECREATIONAL SPORTS

Treadmills aren't for everyone as die-hard runners venture out in bitter cold, snow

Nancy Haggerty
Rockland/Westchester Journal News

With schools closed in Yorktown and most surrounding communities Wednesday, it was a nice morning to pull the covers up and sleep in.

But in Mike Moccia’s view, it was a nice morning to run in the snow.

This, after all, is a man who logged miles outdoors during Hurricane Sandy.

And a fellow who ran when it was recently 8-below, without the wind chill factor.

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Sometimes he’ll run at 4 a.m., wearing a headlamp, temperature be damned. 

“I won’t even touch a treadmill,” the 57-year-old Yorktown resident and Taconic Road Runners Club member explained.

Moccia, who retired at 55 after 38 years working in maintenance for the Town of Greenburgh, calls his passion a “healthy addiction.”

And since Moccia, who has gone from 220 to 150 pounds from 20 years of running, has survived runs in thunderstorms, it’s so far, so good.

Mike Moccia, a Yorktown resident and member of the Taconic Road Runners Club at FDR State Park in Yorktown on Jan. 17, 2018.  Moccia runs in all weather conditions as part of his training.

The lightning might be a deal-breaker for many — not to mention the hurricane that blew his legs sideways. But Moccia is hardly alone in his willingness to run in the cold.

Workers at Rockland Lake State Park in Clarkstown routinely clear the three-mile lake loop that’s popular in all conditions with members of the Rockland Road Runners Club.

“They must think we’re crazy,” said Carol Guzinski, 51.

She’s an athletic trainer at North Rockland High School and has run competitively for more than 30 years. (She ran one year for Penn State before switching to soccer.)

“Temperature doesn’t usually stop us. We’re a pretty die-hard group,” said Guzinski, who noted, with wind chill factored in, she has run when it has been as low as -15.

Wojciech Cieszkowski of Pearl River, 48, jokes that shoveling one to two lanes of the Pearl River High track (that’s a quarter of a mile to half a mile) is a “great upper-body workout.”

“I call it a free gym membership,” he said.

While many Rockland Road Runners members do winter runs at Rockland Lake or Harriman State Park, the high school track is also a prime winter destination, particularly on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Cieszkowski started that tradition more than a decade ago, after becoming a member and wanting to see the club’s May-August summer track program extend beyond summer.

He went from being a guy who barely made it home after jogging two-and-a-half loops around the track about 12 years and 50 pounds ago to someone who’ll run his 30th marathon this April in Boston.

And once Cieszkowski, who owns a construction business in New York City, commits to training for a race, no snow, ice or plummeting temperatures are going to keep him from doing so.

Mike Moccia, a Yorktown resident and member of the Taconic Road Runners Club at FDR State Park in Yorktown on Jan. 17, 2018.  Moccia runs in all weather conditions as part of his training.

Noting ice just makes him and his fellow runners go slower, he said of running in harsh elements, “I wouldn’t describe it as enjoyment. It’s just a state of mind. Once you commit (to training for a race), there’s no excuse about weather conditions.”

“In snow, sometimes someone takes a spill but they just get up and keep going,” said Cieszkowski, who completed 12 miles in Harriman during a recent Sunday with six other people.

He allowed, though, that the question, “What’s wrong with me?” does rattle around his brain.

Despite a strong element of camaraderie, running, of course, is largely an individual sport.

And tastes in weather — just as in running shoes — vary.

Joe Porcaro, 68, of Putnam Valley laughed about seeing a recent photo of fellow Taconic Road Runners member Ted Pernicano.

With sweat frozen to his face, “He looked like Nanook of the North,” Porcaro said.

“I’ve reverted. I’m going to the gym,” said Porcaro, who noted during a recent 13-day spell of very low temperatures, he ran outside just three times.

“I’m wimping out,” he said, explaining he hadn’t tried former Giants football coach Bill Parcells' foot-warming technique of applying vaseline to his feet, then sandwich bags, then socks.

As it is, running in bitter cold with thin running socks and sneakers is like running on “blocks of ice,” he said, explaining why he’s spending an increasing amount of time getting his 10,000 daily steps in indoors.

Mike Moccia, a Yorktown resident and member of the Taconic Road Runners Club at FDR State Park in Yorktown on Jan. 17, 2018.  Moccia runs in all weather conditions as part of his training.

Coaches emphasize caution

Tom Nohilly, a coach with the professional Westchester-based HOKA NJ NY Track Club, who is also John Jay-Cross River High School's cross-country and track and field coach, recommends people running in under-20-degree weather wear a scarf, mask or gator to cover airways to warm inhaled air. He also recommends runners slow their pace.

Cold air, he said, can both begin to freeze airways and increase heart rate. The rate rises to increase circulation and maintain body temperature.

"Pushing the pace (and breathing in more cold air) is high effort. It's not as safe. It's taxing your heart," Nohilly said, explaining this is a significant cause of heart attacks suffered while shoveling snow.

While keeping your core warm is important, overheating by overdressing is also a concern. Nohilly recommends wearing moisture-wicking, zippered clothing, like a vest, that can be zipped down for cooling.

Pernicano didn't overheat with three hats, a ski mask and three pairs of gloves when running with Moccia recently when the temperature was -7. 

But even they had their limits that day. Because of the cold, he and Moccia lasted only four miles of what was planned as a five- to six-mile run.

Pernicano then drove from FDR to Club Fit, also in Yorktown, where he logged another three miles.

Ted Pernicano (l) and Mike Moccia (r) take break while recently running in below-zero temperatures at FDR.State Park in Yorktown.

But the 59-year-old, who works in customer service, prefers the outdoors.

He noted even in the cold, as many as 35-40 Taconic Runners can be found on any given Saturday or Sunday doing what’s locally referred to as the Pump House run. That's along the Croton Reservoir, starting in southern Yorktown.

One who’s typically there is Caroline Curvan of Ossining, 52, a stage manager and English professor at Mercy College.

Curvan, who runs four to five days a week, anywhere from six-to-12 miles each time, questioned whether what she was saying was politically correct but explained, “I just don’t want to get fat. That’s what gets me out."

"I just feel better when I run,” she added. “It works for me.”

While she usually doesn’t run outside when the temperature is below 20 degrees, a little snow, including Wednesday’s, doesn’t stop her.

And, yes, sometimes she does go out when it’s colder.

“It’s great when it ends and you really appreciate living indoors and having heat and hot water,” she said with a laugh.

Asked whether he’s a little crazy, Cieszkowski chuckled and said, “And proud of it.”

“We all know we’re crazy,” Guzinski said. “We admit it when we're out there. But I guess we’re not as crazy if there are eight of us.”

Twitter: @HaggertyNancy