winter confessional

I've decided to place a post here, in lieu of the Interview with my Dad. We're ironing out some kinks in his contract. He's just reading the small print, I guess.

I have a small confession to make and it has to do with snow.

It's no secret here that I'm not friends with the snow. It makes things cold. It makes things messy. It makes me miserable. We just don't get along.

In November, when we had our first snowfall, I naively shrugged my shoulders and took my runs inside onto the treadmills for a bit. 'It's fine', I thought. 'I'll just scurry along here on this treadmill - like a hamster in a wheel - for a couple of months, and before I know it the snow will melt, and I'll take this activity back outdoors where it belongs!'

Oh, sweet, sweet, stupid girl!

Fast forward about 48 hours to my first long run, which was approximately 6 miles at that time. I prepared myself with some new tunes on my iPod, and sashayed into that gym like I owned the place (I was about to run 6 straight miles, after all).

The first three miles were fabulous. I felt strong, pace was good, music was great. But then my ADD kicked in, and the last three miles of that run was pure H.E.Doublehockeysticks!! I tried every trick in the book to keep my brain occupied - I tried to watch The Surreal Life on the tv in front of me, I checked my form in the mirrors in front of me, I switched up the songs on my iPod, I tried to peek at the girl's stats on the treadmill beside me. When I finished that run, I vowed to myself never to put myself through a treadmill workout any longer than 5 miles ever again.

The following week's long run was taken outdoors, where I was met with unploughed sidwalks, caked in slushy snow. I ran 7 miles in this slop and by the end, I was sure my legs were going to unhinge themselves from my hips and just lay there in the snowbank in front of my house. I was positive that my running career had been cut short, because how can you run when you're only a torso? Only one thing was good about this run - I wasn't bored to tears.

And so I continued, each Sunday since mid-November to plod along outside, regardless of the weather conditions. Amazingly, the reflexive profanity that I had grown accustomed to hearing coming from my mouth was gradually waning.

Just this past Sunday, I ran my furthest distance yet (12.5 miles) during a light snow fall. I can't quite describe the feeling to you, of running down the road, the snowflakes floating down towards you, landing all around you. But it seems like they're not landing on you. They're just there to make everything pretty. And it's so pretty!!

When you look at the road ahead you are surprised to realize that as it moves beneath you it is moving on its own. You don't feel any sense of exertion or stress. Your body has fallen into its own rhythm and you no longer have to concentrate on your pace, form, heartrate, breathing. This now feels like your body's natural movement and everything is taking place on its own, organically.

You meet other runners who wave and give you the 'thumbs up' and you understand immediately what they're saying - 'This is Awesome!'. You wave back in agreement.

Your favorite tunes are providing the soundtrack for this amazing experience, but if you take a second and pop your headphones off, you are immediately captivated by the early morning silence. You can hear the wind in the trees, the water rushing along in the river next to you. You can actually hear the snow hitting the pavement.

And then suddenly, before you realize what has happened your senses are overtaken by the acrid smell of diesel fuel. There is no time to react before you are nearly blown sideways into the ditch by the force of an 18-wheeler rushing past you at a buck-twenty, saturating you with wet, salty, slush spraying from it's tires.

I love winter.