There’s something about running in adverse conditions.
Something that’s a little more inspiring than your average run on a fresh
and calm morning in early June. Don’t get me wrong, clearly I love to run when
weather doesn’t make things difficult. But when I woke up this morning to
falling snow, I knew today’s run was going to be awesome.
The best part about running in the winter, and better yet, icy
blowing snow, is the lack of expectations. Winter is stronger than your ego.
You can’t always run as fast as you want, sometimes you have to stop to dodge
an icy spot or a slushy puddle, and sometimes (like today), you are running
through ankle deep snow while being pelted in the eyes with blowing ice, which is definitely not conducive to crushing PRs. But as hard as it
can be sometimes, throwing expectations out the window is incredibly
empowering.
For the last eight months, every run I’ve done has been
strategic. I’ve raced countless races, and PR’d most of them as a result. But
after my last race, I longed to get out there and run, just to run. No expectations.
No disappointments.
In fair weather, having to stop at a streetlight, dodge a
slow moving group of people walking three abreast on the sidewalk, or run
through a muddy trail in the rain, was basically the end of my expectations for
whatever kind of run I was doing. One time this past summer, I ran one of my
normal 5 mile routes only to find that about a mile and a half in, the paved
path I was on was under complete construction and I could not continue. I had a
brief moment of panic. I was holding an awesome pace, I needed to run 5 miles,
and now I was stuck. Where was I going to go? What was I going to do? I needed
to decide fast so I didn’t lose any time. So I ended up running on the curb of
the major street adjacent to the path for about 800 meters. It may not seem
that far, but it was a delicate dance on the narrow balance beam of concrete while traffic rushed past me and it definitely did nothing for my pace. I was
so disappointed. My run was ruined. And while it sounds like I was being over-dramatic (I was), I had something riding on every run that I did. There was
always a next race, a next goal to beat, a new distance to crush. And honestly,
that’s a huge motivator for me. I like the challenge, the humbleness, and the grind
of working as hard as you can to crush your goals. But sometimes your ego just
needs a break.
So, today I ran a “f**k-it” run. It’s my favorite kind of
run. Basically a f**k-it run says just that, to your pace, route or distance.
You just head out and run wherever you want, for as long as you want, as fast
as you want. No expectations. So it doesn’t matter that for an entire mile you
can’t see anything because it’s snowing directly in your eyes, and it doesn’t
matter that you want to stop to take a couple pictures, and it doesn’t matter
when you slow down to walk up the stairs (or that your route even includes stairs in the first place!), or that you are running at a snail’s
pace through ankle deep snow that floats on a surface of sheer ice.
At the end
of it all, it doesn’t matter that you hit 5.46 miles instead of 5.5 miles, it doesn’t
matter that your pace was slow AF and actually worse than your last half marathon,
all that matters is how good it feels to have zero expectations, and to take the
time to enjoy the crazy wintry weather that often allows nothing else but to
run, just for the sake of running.
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