That afternoon on the couch four weeks ago is how I ended up here in this winter wonderland:
Stony Creek Metro Park on a snowy frigid Saturday morning.
This is the view from where I usually run. See, it's different.
My favorite treadmill is the fourth one from the left in the front row. The air vent above it blows the perfect breeze on the back of my neck. The picture above however is taken from the second treadmill from the left because my treadmill was being used by a really sweaty guy. If I’m lucky my view includes a chapter of The Red Hat Society bobbing down the lazy river. They're the ladies who wear the flamboyant red and purple hats. Those gals are hilarious. If you're ever here, come find me, I’m the one who looks like she’s giving the treadmill a hug. Running on a treadmill isn’t the same as running in the wild though. So, every once in a while I sign up for a 5K. My fastest time in a race is 29:33. Unless you count that one time I sprained my ankle the week before a race and Sarah ran in my name. In that case “I” came in third in our age group. Oh calm down, I let her keep the medal and gave her the t-shirt.
The 5K I signed up for this time was called Freeze Your Franny.
It's a race organized by the Utica Community School District to promote a healthy lifestyle. An elementary student drew the lovely picture. And yes, I did ask and no one knew who or what a Franny is. But I froze it. Jon and Sarah froze their respective Franny’s because I signed them up too.
I wouldn't call the breeze that blew on the back of my neck that morning 'perfect' but there was definitely a breeze. You see I registered us on Tuesday. The meteorologists in the area told us on Wednesday about Saturday’s winter weather alert and the forecast for wind and snow. Sometimes I’m just lucky like that. But it is January in Michigan and the name of the race has the word freeze in it. So it was nice to get what we paid for. Later I learned Jon and Sarah had been fairly close throughout the run. It wasn't until Jon couldn't stand listening to the 'swish swish' sound of Sarah's pants that he pulled ahead out of ear shot. They finished with times of 28:40 and 28:50. “The faster you run the sooner you're done" became my mantra and I completed the race in 33:00 minutes. Actually it was 32:59 but I rounded up as penance. Hey, that means I'm only 8 minutes away from accomplishing one of my goals. Sweet.
