One of GeezerJock's founders trains in the Minnesota winter, all to win a bet

At 6:15 a.m. on the Saturday of Super Bowl weekend, the emergency weather radio I keep in my kitchen reported that it was -11 F. The wind-chill was minus -40 (F or C, take your pick; they're identical at this point). It seemed a perfect day for a training run. Outside, of course.

I slipped into seven layers of clothing, put on my bankrobber face mask and drove in the pre-dawn dark to nearby Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. At 7 a.m., I pulled on my gloves and stepped outside. The wind was blowing hard. I started to jog.

My shoes immediately felt like they were made of cement, and my ankles -- protected only by socks and long johns -- felt a bit cool. My eyeballs felt like they were frozen. But, hey, I was out, I was running, and it felt pretty good.

Scratch that: it felt really good. The sky was clear, the sun was about to come over the horizon and the air was fresh. It was straight from the North Pole, and there's not a lot of smog coming from Santa's Workshop. Plus, I had the running path mostly to myself. I counted only six other people out walking or running during my little four-mile jog, and most of them looked like they were escapees from a Jack London story. Ice hung from beards. Face masks were the norm. When I returned home, my wife told me I was nuts.

You may remember a few months ago I wrote about a bet I made with a former college track teammate. I said I could run a 200-meter dash in 25 seconds or less. He laughed a lot and said I couldn't. We bet a beer on it.

At the time it was a stupid bet by me. I would have been lucky to huff a sub-30-second 200 meters. Like so many 40-somethings, I had gotten a little chubby. A little stiff. A bit out of shape. My friend was right to laugh. But lucky for me, we didn't say when I had to run. I figured then a year would be enough time to get in shape.

In the months since I made the bet I have worked on getting myself back into shape in gradual stages. When I made the bet I could barely jog slowly for three miles without stopping and my weight was 192 pounds -- 17 pounds over my college weight. My pants were all tight. Last summer, like Forrest Gump, I just…ran. I tried to run five days a week, at least 25 miles a week. I got my weight down to 185, and my distance running improved dramatically. By autumn, I was able to run seven miles at an eight-minutemile pace. For a three-mile run I could go under a seven-minute-mile pace.

Meantime, I was also hitting the weights at least twice a week. In college, I didn't pay much attention to weight-lifting. I mistakenly believed then that too much lifting would make me muscle-bound, like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now I'm under no such illusion. I've become a born-again believer in free weights.

When I first tried to bench-press in my 40s, I could hardly press 135 pounds. Now I bench sets of 10 at 205 pounds. I'm not more muscle-bound, but I am stronger. My tennis serve is better, it's easier to shovel snow, and I can launch my children higher when we're at the swimming pool.

I'm also much more motivated to stay active, even when Mother Nature doesn't want to play. My first sub-zero run was such a success I did it again the next day. This time, my hat was thicker, and my eyeballs had some protection. Elmer Fudd was onto something with his goofy hat.

So, bottom line over the last eight months: Seven pounds lighter overall, but probably 10 more pounds of muscle. My pants are no longer snug and I have a little more bounce in my step. I eat a little better. My cholesterol dropped from 244 to 197. All this without fad diets or medicine or yoga or motivational podcasts.

Just running shoes, old-school iron weights and, of course, a bet and a goal. There has also been some help from some buddies. A few friends have caught wind of my training regime, and a couple wanted to climb on the bandwagon. It's been refreshing to have some fellow rusty runners who want to train.

Soon, I'll try some track workouts and see if I can keep my hamstrings from blowing apart. One friend is even talking smack about getting together a 4x400 team of geezerjocks. I think he's nuts. Two hundred meters is as far as I want to go.