On the Run - 12/23/08

2.85 mi / 44:55 min / 15:45 mpm

32 degrees - clear sky - dark.

Just as I was lacing up my sneakers, the father-in-law (FIL) asked if I would like to go with him to his men's Saturday morning Bible study breakfast.

Normally, I would love too but I hadn't planned on it and the wife already had more on my "honey-do-before-we-drive-to-Eastern-Washington-this-morning" list than I could manage.

"You would rather freeze in the snow than have a warm breakfast?" he asked.

*gulp* "yes", I said quietly . . .

I decided I would head for the same nature trail I had stumbled upon in the wind storm on my last run and I headed out that direction.

About 10 minutes into my run, the FIL pulled up alongside in the 4x4, "You sure you don't want to go to breakfast??"

"Of course I would rather go to breakfast!" I huffed back. "But I need to run this morning".

"Suit yourself", and off he went.

As it turns out, I ended up making a wrong turn and connected with the trail further down than I had the other day.

The photo above is my headlamp reflecting off the snow (the black square at the bottom is the shadow of my cell phone).

I headed down the new portion of the trail which quickly narrowed into a foot path and crossed a frozen stream.


That's a photo of the foot bridge.

As the path continued, it became flanked by blackberry bushes. If you are not familiar with blackberry bushes, they are nature's barbed wire - branches about the width of a pencil lined with thorns of all sizes. More than once when we lived in the Northwest I came away from a tangle with a blackberry bush covered in gashes and scrapes.

"Running in the dark, in the snow, in shorts may be crazy", I told myself, "but running in the dark, in the snow, in shorts, through blackberry bushes is just stoopid."

Just as I was considering turning around, mother Nature made the decision for me. A tree had fallen across the path and was covered in blackberry vines.



So I headed back. I still got in my full run though.

By the time the FIL had come back from his prayer breakfast, I had already changed back into my PJ's and was on my second cuppa joe.

The FIL related that one of his parishioners had showed up to breakfast claiming to have seen some nut out running in shorts along the side of the road . . .

I can only imagine my father-in-law's response . . .