Feel the anger (why snow is good for you)...

When the third person in a row told me the snow and general yucky weather conditions were making them feel irritable, I realised it wasn't just me being afflicted with grumpy old man disease.

But then I cam across a magic tip for getting the most out of bad weather -- while feeling irritable -- from a runner who knew a thing or two about bad weather: Paavo Nurmi, the "Flying Finn", winner of nine Olympic titles.

Famous for training and racing with a stopwatch and dominating every event he entered, he trained lightly in the harsh Finnish winter, it is true. The accepted protocol at the time was to ease into running via long walks. Nurmi later admitted that was a mistake, as it tended to make him stiff as well as taking up too muich training time.

He was so dominant that Swedish officials on the organizing committee for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris managed to push through a timetable change, moving the finals of the 1500 and the 5000 to the same day, 55 minutes apart. Nurmi was favouroite to win both. He responded by changing his training to practise producing two major efforts and in June before the Games he had a dress rehearsal at a special Helsinki track event: he set a new world record 1500m (3:52.6) and 55 minutes later won the 5000 in another world record (14:28.2). In Paris he did it again, outside record pace, and won another 3 gold medals in the same Games for good measure.

In 1923 Nurmi wrote down the reasons why he thought he and his Finnish colleagues were the best runners in the world. He credited Finland's climate as a major factor. What intrigued me was while the Finnish summers are ideal for running, as they are never too hot, Nurmi said the tough winters were also an advantage: they made the Finnish runners aggressive and angry, which encouraged them not only to get out and train, but to train hard.

I am so relieved. I was feeling so weird about the weather. I mean, it's not like it's really severe like in Alaska, or Finland; but now I know that snow and ice can make a nine-times Olympic champion angry, I feel a lot better -- and ready to train harder.

Paavo Nurmi Is Named Finland's Greatest Athlete Of The Past Century
Runner's World reports that the selection has just been made in a poll by the Finnish Athletics Celebration, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2006.
"Nurmi won nine track and field and cross country gold medals in the 1920, 1924, and 1928 Olympics. Lasse Viren, who scored 5000/10,000-meter double victories in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, placed second. Javelin thrower Tiina Lillak topped the poll among women."

* Thanks to Tim Noakes' "Lore of Running" (4th editition) for putting me on to Nurmi's story.