EARLY OUT

Today after they announced school was getting out early and everyone erupted in cheers, they started making the obligatory weather related sports announcements. That meant that in almost every class I went to, there were various people complaining that their sport's practices were still on. What a bunch of lazy bums.

I guess I can kind of identify how they feel. I've been through too many announcements that come on and say "basically every sport is canceled except for track" or "all sports are canceled or indoors but long distance runners you still have to run outside". These announcements are terrible so once track starts, half days kind of lose their appeal. But these announcements also allow me to feel even more superior over other sports because weather doesn't stop us.

This superiority often makes me ridicule others when they complain. But some of my scorn is justified. The swimmers are complaining about practice- which is indoors. Basketball practices- indoors. Wrestling- also indoors. There are no sports that have their season during the winter that practice outdoors. Yet they complain when I know that regardless of the weather I will run outside. There's a reason we got out early, blizzard warnings, blowing snow including the three inches that was on the ground while I ran, plus it was cold outside. All those people complaining get to be inside so why are they complaining?

It was a warm 26 degrees when I ran today and not as windy as it has been. Sure, those 5.65 miles were incredibly slow because there was snow on the sidewalks and streets that made it hard to run on. Then there was the problem of the snow blowing into my face on the way back to my house. My long sleeve shirt was soaked and covered in snow. The snow had also covered my knee socks making my running tights underneath them, very wet. The worst part of the snow wasn't the fact that it stung my cheeks and made me cold, it was that it was freezing on my eyelashes, headband, and hair. I was constantly having to wipe off my face to see. And with the low visibility, that didn't help.

Running in the snow is, of course, magical at times, but not as much today. I was pretty focused on getting my run done so I could get warm and eat lunch (at 2:50) than noticing the quiet, snow globe like feel. I was trying to go faster too, but that wasn't working out as well. Overall, it wasn't a terrible run, just really hard. It's almost making me look forward to single digit temperatures.