Running with Jack

I woke up today to 7 inches of new snow, so did about an hour of cross-training (read shoveling snow). The snow was light and powdery, easy to shovel, easy to drift. I decided to wait until the afternoon to run, the sun was shining so I figured the snow would melt down a bit. But NOOO mother nature had other plans, the temperature remained below freezing, the wind picked up and drifts started doing their thing.

Anyway about 14:00 (2 p.m. for you non-veteran types), I geared up and hit the trail. The first 2-3K’s weren’t too bad, I clung to the road as much as possible. But then phase one of the run from hell reared its ugly head as I had to run along a 2K path between two fields. I think I would have had better luck running across the fields, because my path (or where I think the path was) was filled with 8+ inches of snow and drifts up to 2 feet deep. Normally when it is so cold the snow freezes a bit and it’s not too bad - but not todayyy - NOOO the snow was soft, I spun, I slipped, the wind beat me into a pulp, I froze - I wondered why the hell I was out there anyway. By then I had reached the edge of the woods - it was somewhat better for about 10 minutes as I the trail followed the border of the trees. The wind was coming from the other side of the forest, so the snow hadn’t piled up so bad – it was only about 6-8 inches deep. But then as the path wound into the forest I ran into phase two of this hellish run. It seems a couple farmers thought it would be super cool to pull the neighborhood kids on theirs sleds through the woods, great idea, right? That’s what you think - my running trail was filled with clumps of snow, drift-filled ruts, ice and hardly a flat surface anywhere. I had to fight my way through this mess for almost 40 minutes, finally popping out of the woods on a drift-filled trail, this time full in the wind. Man, talk about de-motivation plus. I passed a couple tromping through the snow, he was taking pictures, she had the video camera – did I tell you we normally don’t get so much snow? Anyway they were documenting it. I couldn’t help but wonder if they got a shot of the insane runner who was fighting snow drifts, wind and sub-freezing temperatures – RUNNIN G mind you, on a day when most people stayed home and snuggled up with a cup of hot chocolate. Anyway I finally made it home, happy to have the run from hell over with, feeling more like I ran 20K, than 12. My better-half must have seen me coming, she opened the door, kind of shook her head probably wondering why she married such an insane-crazy-person, and broke a couple icicles off my hat (really!). By this time the sun was hiding - I guess it was too cold - my better-half said something about 27°F and dropping.

But you know what, after a hot bath, a hot chocolate and a hot meal I felt pretty good. I mean in the old days I would have sat and watched TV, drank hot chocolate, ate every thing out of the fridge, slept, ate and generally put on a couple pounds. Today I did something for the old bod, and feel pretty good about it too - I only hope it warms up a bit before my half-marathon in two weeks! AUgh!