I've recently realized how lucky I am to live in Texas. I haven't always felt that way, after all, I did grow up in Monterey, California. Easily one of the most beautiful places on the planet to live. I thought that was very lucky! I have also been fortunate enough to live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the Colorado Rockies and even Austin, where they have a lake (river) and hills (which they call mountains, but the rest of the world knows those are just hills). So, Dallas, Texas, in all it's non-glory, flat, very few trees and of what it did have were weird, dead trees growing out of its lakes, didn't seem all that special. Until I began to run.
My running team, poor things, live in Iowa and Indiana where it snows! As they've shared their times and runs with me they've mentioned words like wind, ice and below freezing temperatures. Oooohh, these people are serious runners! I've tried not to be too glib as I shared my times and used words like sun, shorts, and 50 degree weather; just a little "Oh, by the way, it's beautiful weather here," was slyly mentioned... Ok, maybe I did want them to be a little jealous. After all, they've all run marathons and run very fast. I had to have something.... :) But there was this tiny voice that said I didn't need to be as tough as them to gut it out and run in the cold.
Until yesterday! Yes, Texas had snow, and ice, and it was very cold! At first I had a weenie attitude, but at some point I realized, this is my chance! I can be a serious runner too! I put on my neck gaiter/hat, gloves, under armor, sweats, long sleeved shirt, light jacket and heavy jacket and went running. I looked like I was going to rob the 7-11. The only part of my skin that showed was the opening in my hat where my eyes were and I had covered that with sunglasses in case of snow blindness. (Well, I did live in the Rockies and that was a problem there anyway) People looked out their cars at me impressed. I assumed that's what that look on their face was, what else could it have been? (Don't answer that) Okay, there really wasn't a lot of snow or ice on the sidewalks, but I carefully ran the 7 miles to Plano and 7 miles back. I bet there aren't a lot of people that live in Texas that can say they ran 14 miles in the snow. I am a beast, running in the snow!
Woo hoo! You rock! Don't you feel studly now? We just got another pile of snow that I get to run through tomorrow morning. I must say I'm feeling like a wimp right now and that's the last thing I want to do early tomorrow morning. Sigh. But if you can do it in all your sunshiney Texas glory, then I can too!
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