On The Run - Christmas Day 2008

2.65 mi / 39:14 min / 14:47 mpm

15 minute mile shattered! In the snow! Uphill!

I used to spend every summer on an honest to goodness desert island. Seriously. The day after my High School let out for the summer, I would be on my way to Catalina Island to work as a lifeguard at a YMCA youth camp. I would live in the staff quarters for 10 weeks and return to the mainland the day before school started.

My typical day would start with breakfast in the staff dining hall. Then me and the other lifeguards would head down to the beach for a day of surf, sand and sun. We would rake the beach, sweep the pier, gas up the water ski boats, set up the walkie talkies and prepare for the day.

By the end of the day, most of us had been in and out of the pacific so many times that we had a white ring of salt around the top of our red lifeguard shorts. There would be salt coating our skin and so much salt in our hair that you couldn't run your hand through it.

I don't think I will ever forget the feeling of that hot shower at the end of the day. Frequently, after washing the brine off and slathering lotion on our dried and sunburned skin, we would pull on Bermuda shorts and shirts, brew a pot of coffee and head out to the lawn for a leisurely game of Bocce Ball.

But not just any old pot of coffee . . .

Keep in mind that we spent 10 weeks living communally on a 21 acre piece of desert island. In those conditions small things can become big things and that first pot of coffee brewed after a hot shower at the end of a hot day at the beach took on an almost sacramental significance.

We would buy whole bean coffee from little store in Avalon, the island's only town (This was back in the 80's before most of us had ever heard of Starbucks). My personal favorite was South Seas Cinnamon. We would grind the coffee fresh in the evening and use only purified water. Only two or three of us were allowed to brew this holy carafe as you had to use just the right amount of beans, grind them just so, use the right amount of purified water etc. We were like the high priests of caffeine dispensing communion to the faithful few.

A long, hot, briny day at the beach, followed by a long hot shower, soothing lotion, clean lose-fitting shorts and shirt, and a relaxing evening strolling around the lawn joking and jibing your friends in a good natured game of Bocce - with the best cuppa joe you have ever tasted in your life.

These were the thoughts running through my head as I braved 21 degrees and snow on my run this morning.

The map said there was a trail that ran along the river not far from the place we are staying. What the map didn't tell me was that between here and there was a hill about 1/2 mile long. "It is what it is" I told myself as I descended the hill on my outbound leg of the run.

When I reached the highway at the bottom of the hill, there was a snowy slope of brush and barbed wire between me and the actual trail below. I decided to just hoof it along the highway. 21 degrees, 7am Christmas morning and I had the whole place to myself.

I did eventually reach a trail head and I followed the path in to the trees. I reached the frozen river just as my Ipod was telling me that it was time to turn around.

I lugged my 200+ pound carcass back up the hill, sweating under my windbreaker at the same time that the frozen morning air was chilling my lungs - visions of cups of desert island coffee dancing in my head.

It was early morning instead of early evening, instead of warm sand, there was ice and snow, instead of the mystical South Seas Cinnamon, the coffee was some sort of generic brand, but after a 40 minute run on a snowy Christmas morning, it tasted pretty dawggone good.