Winter Pallor

“I’m already taking on a winter pallor.”  That is what friend Beau White bemoaned a few weeks ago.  ”An unhealthy pale appearance”  as the dictionary defines the word is a terrible thing.  Doctors who have long warned that exposure to the sun was so damaging to the skin are now reversing course and encouraging some solid sun time for overall health.  The Vitamin D the sun provides is critical to health and mood they now tell us.  Are you kidding me?  I have long believed in the power of the sun’s rays and soaked up as much of it as I can every day.

Granted, Beau does most of his KU work indoors, but the weather of recent weeks now has me worried that I will soon be fading away to an ashen hue as well.  If recent weeks are any indication, the winter ahead will be awful.  This weekend’s two soccer matches and a KU football game in frigid temperatures with high winds are never fun.  The fact that those games and matches came so early in October is terribly depressing.

I gauge successful football weather on how long I can wear shorts to games.  I love shorts and will wear them any chance I can.  As much time as I spend kneeling for photographs, shorts also save me money on jeans and slacks that wear out very fast.  Nothing’s worse than kneeling in good suit pants at some awards event and realizing how badly stretched and worn the knees will look very soon.

There have been some rare years when shorts worked all football season.  Two years ago, when KU went to the Orange Bowl, only a frosty night game at Colorado kept me out of jeans.  Then in what was supposed to be sunny south Florida, Laura and I scrambled for cold weather gear for that January 3 game.  Last season, a frigid game in Lincoln and the cold and snow at the Missouri game required long pants.  As much as I love my shorts, I am not absurd.  I push it a bit, but last weekend there was plenty of long underwear under jeans, jacket and wind pants.  Another night game in Boulder this weekend, sadly, looks to require long pants.   This is not fun at all.

Of course a phone call from my ENT nurse warning me about care of my nose and sinuses this weekend didn’t help my mood.  I wish I was breathing clean and clear so soon after surgery, but I’m not.  All the good people that keep telling me how great I will soon feel are the same telling me that shooting the events I did this weekend was not a smart idea.  I survived, hopefully, without damage.  As for the onset of winter, I’m not sure.

I am already dreading the need to suit up before almost any activity.  Pulling on all sorts of winter cycling gear surely does take an edge off the fun of very needed long winter rides.  Here’s hoping that a fantastic stretch of Indian summer is just around the corner.  I’ll hate the onset of my “winter pallor” arriving so early.  I need my daily Vitamin D.