Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

The frozen north

Just about every open-air object in Boston was gently dripping this evening after the first real show of weather I've seen since getting here on New Year's Day. A heavy snowfall overnight lasted through most of the morning, when various other forms of precipitation (sleet, freezing rain, ice pellets) took over to add their own unique signatures and turn the streets into a mixture of fresh wet snow and mushy, freezing-cold slush.

It was obvious that this was the perfect day for a run. My feet were kind of itchy as I hadn't run in the open air since last Saturday and anyway, I had a shiny new pair of shoes to road test. So it was on with the thermals, out the front door, and off I went after a couple of minutes delay while my GPS worked out that Toto, it wasn't in London any more.

The pavements were tough going as the combination of ploughed roads and a slight thaw had filled the gutters with freezing cold slush, making crossing roads an awkward operation. The pavements themselves ranged from completely clear to snowy and slippery. Turning off the road onto the bike path made things a bit easier. The path was mostly covered in fresh virgin snow, making running somewhat easier but still fairly strenuous as you really have to pick your feet up and yomp. It's great fun running through fresh snow, though, and I enjoyed that bit.

It had naturally started to rain again as soon as I set off, so when I got back to the house after about the longest 5k I've ever run I looked like a drowned rat in Lycra thermals. My legs are still hurting from the effort.

At the other end of the scale, I tried running a few kilometres on a hotel gym treadmill on Monday. It was really quite fantastically dull to just run on the spot and not go anywhere, despite being able to watch CNN while I was at it. Treadmills are good for keeping tight control on things like speed and incline, but for distance running it had all the excitement of watching paint dry or, in this case, of watching a distance meter moving very slowly. Give me some nice fresh snow any day.

Posted by mpk at January 7, 2005 12:33 AM | TrackBack