Epic

“You’re gonna die.” When you hear those words, you know a run is going to be epic. Sure it’s an exaggeration, but really it means that a person (or people in this case) think that you are absolutely crazy, and/or stupid, for going out and running. Now, I’ve had epics before – a 20 miler in a downpour comes to mind – but I’ve never run when it was 4 degrees and snowing. Sure I was cold, sure I was wet, but I wouldn’t have changed things one bit.

It’s these epic runs that really make you stop thinking about running and start thinking about, well, anything and everything else. The conditions are so extreme that it distracts you from paying attention to every foot strike, every breath, or even your time. Today my mind wandered. First, I saw another set of footprints in the snow. “Are these somehow mine?” I thought to myself. Then of course, “Maybe I can catch up to whoever it is.” However, eventually they veered off the road to the snow-less shoulder and then disappeared.

Desperately glancing around for the lost tracks, I looked up and saw a fox watching me from up the road. Now, rarely do you ever see a fox, and am unable to remember the last time I’ve seen one, or for that matter if I have ever even at all. This does seem odd to me that although growing up on a farm and usually seeing multitudes of wildlife, my memory file seems to be blank in the fox category. In any case, my fox friend disappeared as well, running into the woods hopefully to be seen another day.

Wanderings often turn into perseverance to finish out a run strong. Still, I didn’t think of every little technical aspect of the run, I just gave it all I had. It becomes a battle against the weather. Each gust of wind, each eyeful of snowflakes just made me hunker down more and just go. Sure the weather threw a few good blows with snow covered ice patches, but I ultimately came out the victor. I ran my best 3 mile time since picking up running again and had a blast doing it.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

- "The Charge of the Light Brigade," Alfred, Lord Tennyson