Happy new year!! I ran 10 miles today!

1/3/10 Retro: 

This past week was spent in a "Chateau" in Moultonboro, New Hampshire hugging Lake Winnipesaukee and enjoying all that Old Man Winter has to offer.  I was able to get in some skiing, snowshoeing, and of course winter running.  My legs were tenderized from skiing at Gunstock the day before my epic 10 mile run. 

Our corks found in the snowy wood not to far from where we celebrated the New Year.

New Years Day, I waited and hydrated until I recovered from NYE revelry to embark on my run. While all of my friends hunkered down with cups of hot chocolate around a 17 inch television to watch the Winter Classic broadcast at Fenway Park, I was wheezing while running up serpentine hills in the snow.  

The weather was perfect.  The afternoon was about 30 degrees with a continuous light dusting of flakes. The air was brisk and clean. 

Animal prints in the velvety snow reminded me of their existence.  

Snow left no tree branch nude.  I think I am getting used to running outdoors because 30 degrees is warm to me! At first I wanted to run on pavement, so I ran to the main road.  

The main road had its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that it provides little thinking-I can run in one direction until I decide to turn around. Second, my legs get used to the pounding on pavement. However, it proved to be more dangerous, since snow was plowed on both sides, there was barely any shoulder for me to run.  I was constantly crossing the meandering road to avoid being roadkill.  The cars on this main road were probably going 50 miles per hour.  I saw a car every 7 minutes or so.  The image of the totaled car flipped on its back like a turtle kept flashing through my mind.  We were driving back from Gunstock as the snowstorm was rolling in and an unfortunate car must have been speeding, which ended in the car looking like it was crushed in a compactor.  So, I went back to our rental house tucked in a quiet neighborhood and realized there were a lot of HILLS. 

The sun was going down at 4, the air got increasingly colder.  By the end of it, I grew tired and my legs couldn't handle another hill.  My lungs stung from sucking in cold air.  I ran back in just in time to see the final moments of the Bruins win in overtime! A sweet New Year!! 

Happy New Year! I hope that you squeeze the life out of 2010, embark on an adventure and reach your goals! 






Reading for today:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost