Day 52 - Slop. Wet, cold slop.

Yuck.

My street is covered is slush.

Covered.

If you were to stand in it, well, that would be pretty stupid. I mean, it's really cold and wet. But if you did, it would come close to covering your shoes.

It's as if someone left the spigot on the Slurpee machine open, for a year.

Rather than start my run with wet frozen feet, I drove a mile to my local rail-to-trail. (I think driving to a run that isn't a race, or a destination run, or a meet-up with other runners, is touching on sacrilege. But for the sake of dry warm-ish feet, I'm willing to take on a little sacrilegiousity.)

The run was slow. A recovery run from the race yesterday. At least that's my rationalization.

This was at noon. The trail is full of amateurs at noon. And every one of these amateurs was walking their dog. And some dogs.

Did I mention my dog is high energy? She's also very prey-driven. She's also extremely excited to see other dogs... some as playmates, some as lunch.

So my outing was a damp shuffle interspersed with emergency dog obedience exercises. Better than not running, but kinda dreary.

Then, a lone runner passed me going the other way. He gave me a pleasant head-nod and a "Hey buddy."

I've never seen the dude. He didn't know me. It was nice to have even a brief interaction with another runner who gets it. Not the usual iPod wearing, eyes cast downward, anti-social masochist. This guy was out in the same gross conditions as I was, and he was enjoying it, too.

After being let down by one idiotic member of my running community yesterday, it was refreshing to be reminded that one rotten apple shouldn't sour your opinion of the whole bunch. Bunch? Bushel? Yes, bushel. Bunches are bananas.

Good running,

Doug

Numbers: 3.1 miles, slowish.

For those interested in the social goings on, had a great time at the house concert last night featuring Greg Ziesemer & Kriss Luckett. My Chicken and Broccoli Mac & Cheese was a hit (Note to my future self: Next time I take this dish to a folk music house concert, I might want to label it so as not to rankle the vegans.)