There is a point at which the written word breaks down and what you really need is a visual medium. This may be one of those times, because the twelve or so inches of snow on the ground – and trees, and hills, and stream banks – are really not going to be done justice by my words. Alas, one of the things this blogging experiment has taught me is that I am not intuitively a photographer or videographer. By this I mean that I do not naturally think to grab a camera and head outside. Since none of my favorite photographers have published snow pictures quite yet, you are stuck with words.
Having spurned the street for the stationary trainer yesterday, I was determined to get out for a real run today. As the sun was emerging from a light cloud covering around 8:30 this morning, I decided the timing was not going to get any better. It could not get that much worse, either, given the fact that we have nowhere to go and nothing to do. This state of blissful inaction may be fun for another 12 to 18 hours, but after that I will have to start working on my novel.
In the meantime, I headed out for a run. There was little evidence of any melting on the streets of the Suwaree. It was clear pretty quickly that the place to be was in a rut of compacted snow created by the path of a vehicle’s travel. This is also a good place for other vehicles to travel, so as I ventured on to the county road I had to move aside at times to allow the motorcars to get through. Fortunately they were few and far between.
Reaching the blanket mill, I was greeted by the kind of winter scene often viewed in overly optimistic calendar pages for January and February. The snow on the banks of two frozen ponds as well as the rushing Bee Tree creek laid heavy and thick. As I approached the wooded trail into the Valley of Love and Delight, I thought the only thing worse than my disturbing the tranquil surface was my not having brought a camera along. It turns out that snow has a way of imposing its own punishment.
Running in 3 inch deep snow along woodland trails in the quiet of winter is heavenly. Running in 12 inch deep snow in a void where none can hear you scream is hellish. Any energy coming from my legs was quickly dampened by the snow and then lost as my feet slid backwards. Good, steep hills have nothing on this stuff. In addition, my heart of 36 years, to which I have been faithful the whole time, objected to this added strain and immediately diverted oxygen from my brain to my legs. As soon as I gained a path carved by a farm vehicle, the situation was reversed, sending so much oxygen to my brain that the resulting head rush threated to send me stumbling out of my track.
Righting myself, I eventually gained the campus roads which were the clearest in the land of the Suwaree. It’s entirely possible that, having socked away six cans of PBR, a crew of teenagers had cleared these roads at 3am. We have interesting ways of making fun in the Valley of Love and Delight. Rather than returning to the farm, I ventured through the campus and back to the county road. The abundance of vehicle tracks made the running easier, but the guys at the fire department thought I was nuts. What is the point of running if you can’t make a man who would run into a burning building shake his head in wonderment?