Day 5: Dashing through the Snow

Date: January 25th 2011, 9pm
Distance: 3.7 miles
Weather: Polluted



I was excited for the run today because I was taking what I felt to be an interesting route. I started at the letter "A" (on the map to the right). Those buildings just north-west of me is the MTC, and if you are . familiar with Provo then you know that I'm running right by the LDS temple.

Then there was the snow.

This morning it was inconspicuously sunny until the sky started dumping snow out of nowhere.We had a solid 3-4 inches come down in less than 2 hours. But more about that later.

The whole first mile is uphill at a pretty steep incline.With the snow gumming up the sidewalks, I soon found myself running in the bike lane. When the bike lanes disappeared, I went back to the sidewalks. I figured that the powdery snow would give me a good resistance work out. It felt like I was running in the sand on the beach. Needless to say, I was gasping for air by the time I reached the Rock Canyon trail-head. That's also when I looked out over the valley and noticed the particularly thick pollution.  Dumb inversion layer. That's the second reason I was gasping for air.

Running on the sidewalks was unpredictable because I was at the mercy of the homeowners who had chosen to shovel the sidewalks or not. I'd run for fifty feet on a bare sidewalk, then 50 feet in 3 inches of snow, then 50 feet on slippery cement (aka poorly shoveled sidewalk), and so on. Once the sidewalk had disappeared under the snow and I didn't know that I was running on Auntie Mable's petunias until I saw the mailbox in my path. Sorry Mable.

Realizing that the streets were empty, I choose to ran in the middle of the road. I was about at the letter "B" (on the map) when the downhill really started picking up. For one steep downhill stretch near the trail-head to the "Y" my speed got really high and I couldn't stop. It was a way narrow two lane road with no sidewalks (that reminded me of the road we would take to go to the Sullivan's for piano lessons in Texas). Thankfully there wasn't traffic or I would have had to bail into somebody's yard.


By that time, nature began to call, so I tried to focus my mind on other things. Among the distractions, a mud puddle soiled my left shoe (frown), a car started honking like crazy, and I saw a dog pooping on the sidewalk near Kiwana's Park. It's amazing what you see when you just look around. To quote a favorite collection  of Calvin and Hobbes, "There's Treasure Everywhere."