Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Crunch, Shelter, Grandpa

ORN: 6.1 miles 1:01:09, 10:01/mile

Brutal weather this morning, with 23 degrees and a vicious wind out of the west. And, it was a really good run. This is my midweek long run. Finally starting to dial this up a bit, as anything over 5 is more interesting to me.

It rained yesterday all day, turning to sleet and then snow as the day went on. Snowed some overnight and by the time I was out the door at 5:30am, the snow was nice and crunchy. It was a very nice surface to run on, for the most part, with a gritty "crunch" with every step. Great traction, except for the places where water had run across the trail and it was pure ice...There I had to walk and that took any starch out of the times today. No bother.

The run was nice because of the thinking. I got started as I loped along a large wooded area to the west of the trail. Wow, what a shelter from the 30mph wind. It was almost calm in the shelter of the large, dense, wooded area. In other parts of the trail, a small rise or fall in the trail gave more or no defense from the wind.

Which got me thinking further of my ancestors. My Great-grandfather moved to Nebraska in the mid-1860s and homesteaded. We still own that farm, where I grew up in the 60s. What must life had been like for them? I was out today in well-designed technical clothing and was comfortable. They had to LIVE in this weather and worse (Nebraska is much more severe than here in Indiana). They farmed, lived, had babies, had family events, made a living in this brutal climate. What a resilience. And a heritage.

Yeah, a nice run. And they sure did persevere.

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