feeling ungloved 22

Feeling un`gloved 22 One off my new year’s resolutions for 2022 was to? - not wear any gloves for a full year this was an extremely hard challenge for me, I normally have a glove obsession wearing them constantly from November to April, I detest my hands getting cold even worse; - many years ago I fell in the squash court on my racket hand and crushed my pinkie! this ended up with the curious scenario that every time the temperature drops below minus two I end up with my rihight hand pinkie getting white finger syndrome on the tip, this is extremely painful which makes me overly cautious whilst out in the cold, why then should I take the crazy notion to spend a whole year without wearing gloves? There was a few reasons for this one was to highlight to me how much Warmer winter has become due to human caused climate change, this is no longer an accident , our species is now doing this intentionally, I am trying to be the changes we need to see in the world, also; on a personal note to prove to myself how much protecting my hands from the cold was in fact only weakening them, for many years I would go skiing every winter sometimes winter climbing also here in Scotland, no winter climbing or hiking over in Europe, But; I’ve skied in countless places all over Europe, I have witnessed how different winter is now compared to when I was a youth, what advice do I give my son as regards protection from the cold or lack off? I have been caught by marketing consumerism a massive part of the climate change emergency we are in, I own way more than forty pairs of gloves, not including marigolds gardening or DIY gloves, these are the reasons I felt this social experiment on not keeping my hands warm during winter, along with toughening them during the summer would be educational – what did I learn? - When I was only twelve years old in the late 1970s, I was a paperboy, I done a daily round six days a week and a double round on a Sunday, delivering newspapers every day from age twelve, until leaving school at sixteen, during the very cold months I would get an extra pair of socks and use these to keep my hands warm, whilst delivering the newspapers - the milk delivery boys would mock me for being a wimp! Probably right enough they were tough lads, my mate Baz still smiles when he tells the story of how a woman at the end of his milk round, always handed him heated empty bottles on cold mornings, I was one of seven children so mum and dad didn’t have the financial strength to buy lots of children’s gloves, they didn’t have gloves themselves we the children would just have to toughen up as they had done, my father’s hands where what is traditionally called hand’s like leather! they were in fact more like dogs paws he never wore gloves at any time of year, doing any sort of work much of which was very manual, I have witnessed him in the garden stripping out handfuls of long stinging nettles, I’ve seen him work with cold steel tools and nuts and bolts, I’ve also seen his hands in boiling water almost oblivious, my hands did toughen up when I started working in industry, bashing pipes and nuts and bolts with companies that never supplied gloves this may seem strange these days, it was only in work places with strong unions that got companies to supply people with gloves when I was young, gloves were a luxury was the norm here in Scotland working class people had tough hands and feet, actually; humans here developed a toughness to the cold northern atmosphere, with harsh winters my ancestors must have been able to cope without prosthetics such as gloves and shoes, our ancestors did not have these luxury’s! so; why should I feel this is a necessity not a luxury?

I felt the only way to find the answer to this was to physically test myself? I regularly experiment on Guinee pig K (me) and document my findings to gain knowledge to share, who would you ask for advice if I should wear gloves or not? Ask any sports person they are likely to think you are looking for a particular type of glove and its properties, this is how the marketing forces work a sports person would be inclined to believe you are looking for a product recommendation - this I do not require, as I personally could leave product reviews from years of use (especially on ski mitts) I’ve used countless glove types for sports of all description’s, (except golf! Not a fan of gowf) As a teenager my hands did get toughened up, I spent my teens doing manual labour on my hands where I regularly got what is called hacks every winter which year on year got less and less painful, then; I entered the chemical industry where the health and safety department insisted we wore work gloves these were supplied free thanks to the unions, this was when my hands turned soft, I became socially conditioned to view personal protective equipment as the way to avoiding injury or discomfort, the iceman Wim Hof would see definitely differently his hands he can famously make warmer heating them through thinking about it! it’s been proven with infrared cameras his ice bath techniques and breathing techniques - can seem a bit extreme, but; they do appear to work, I wish I had maybe given these techniques a trial first, perhaps; this is one for the future! I’ve checked the online videos and it’s as simple as immersing your hands and feet in ice water for two mins every day,

I was once the market enforces dream, a total slave to consumerism! one of the many clothing items I overconsumed was gloves, I own four pairs of large skiing mountaineering Mitts which I love, I also have two large pairs of quality well insulated thick mountain gloves,ive got ten pairs of woollen gloves in various styles, two pairs of fluffy inner liner gloves and one pair of normal waterproof insulated gloves- also six pairs of running specific gloves! And eight pairs of thin liner gloves, there was also one sad lonely single silk liner in my glove’s drawer, potentially a remnant of my motorbike days, I also have my cycling gloves 3 pairs of heavy-duty winter ones and three pairs of fingerless summer cycling gloves, this is just a quick count - I will not include my gardening DIY gloves or marigolds- disposable nitrile gloves, none of which I have worn this past year

The purpose of this blog is not to write a product review, although; I could easily give plenty manufacturers advice! This was an experiment on the need for gloves at all? And; if so, when must they be worn, I never went skiing or winter climbing last year, if I had? then I would have likely failed this experiment, I shall write what knowledge I gained from a runners perspective, I ran every single day of 2022, the rules of my daily Run was one mile minimum outside each day, most days I done much more, on the long run days in icy weather it was extremely hard to keep the no gloves promise, I ended up getting chilblains twice in march, what’s the NHS advice for this condition? Wear gloves keep hands and feet warm; you may have Raynaud’s disease! Wim Hoff would say strengthen your body and mind embrace the power of the cold, after my yearlong experiment I would agree with Wim more than the marketeers, are doctors’ marketeers? Modern society is strangling itself in rubbish due to overconsumption, I also never once wore nitrile (so called) disposable gloves in the past year, I hate throw away single use plastic, the unscientific amount of disposable plastic PPE used during the pandemic was disgusting, plastic companies and government officials made millions of pounds, creating a rubbish mountain or lake whatever you would like to call it? out of that PPE waste, it broke my heart running around my local trails to see the thousands of pairs of these disposable gloves everywhere, alongside the disposable masks that were littered on trail in tree in sand sea river paths and lochs disgusting!

I am a proud to be a fully pledged up green runner, one of our pillar pledges is how we kit up, should Guinee pig K return to gloves? Yes BUT - only when he needs to, I shall make sure I have gloves with me on long run days in cold weather, I pledge never to buy another pair of gloves, I have more than enough, as a matter of fact I may consider gifting some to companies like rerun, any questions on consumerism? then read- Damian Halls book – we cant run away from this, he writes extensively about the amount of running equipment worldwide that ends up in landfill, while irresponsible manufacturers continue to market further new purchases, this is unsustainable these days we must ask ourselves before making any purchase, do we really need this item? In the case of this blog gloves, no I don’t, reduce/ reuse/ repair – never landfill