Rhapsodies of the Wise Old Bird: Before and After

Saturday, 31 December 2016

Before and After

In 1975 my friend Helmut said if I ran 3km/day I could do 1000km/year - that seemed like a plan! In 1979, Dec 31 I was in Toronto and I was 30km short sooo I ran from the Bathurst-Lawrence area to north-east of Wilson-Don Mills - don't remember exactly the route except that it was clear cold - maybe -20C and very windy and I was cold, very cold. I recall in a weaker moment thinking(?) I should call it, when a police car drove by but I could not attractany attention. Of course, I carried no money or ID. I survived, none the wiser for the experience, and since then have usually run something on this day - Silvester in DE-land, New Year's Eve here in CA-land.

And today was no different - I try to run here at approx the same time that friends are running in Europe - so 9am here is 15:00 Central European Time (MEZ). I had support here from Marc and Marie, and from Jörg in the Netherlands - I hope to be able to post his run in this blog a little later so be sure to come back again in 10-20 hours if he says yes - or Ja.

Marc and I met in the fitness room to warm up at 9am:
Marc before the run:

A long drink of water!

And Me before:

I am wearing the jacket from the Monschau Marathon relay team, the fleece from Odendorf, and the green balaclava from Jörg and the Rennsteig
- it is difficult to see under my nose. The green hat is from my sister-in-law. And I am in a warp drive that will feature in Dec 2017 if I am still here - I expect to be a "round"!

Out the back door: snow

No fool - I mean foot print to be seen - yet.
And 2 views to the lake:

Did I mention that it was snowing heavily? And that it was windy?

Evidence of running?

Actually, the temperature was not a factor as long as we were sheltered from the wind.
Marc and I paid a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot and the horizontal snow