I took advantage of today's good weather to head out for a run during the girls' naps. By preference and laziness I've run the same short out-and-back route through the Arb for three straight days, which has let me watch the remaining snow try to survive. North-facing slopes with tree cover are still pretty snowy, while all the south-facing hills are bare of snow, and thus muddy as Verdun. As Vivi might say, mispronouncing her favorite book, "splat splat splat."
Another reason I'm running the same route over and over is that it's a pretty easy go, and I don't want to shock my legs any more than they have been: the transition from skiing to running has been rather painful so far. Tired legs aside, I am starting to get used to running again already, and I have been amused to see a rapid (and basically meaningless) decline in the time it's taken run this (almost exactly 6km) route: 35:49 on Friday night, 34:18 on Saturday night, 31:56 this afternoon. If I drop four minutes from my time every three days on this route, I should be running at world-record pace by my birthday, and at roughly the speed of light by May Day.
While the prospect of defying natural law is tempting, I sure wish I was still skiing, like they are at the U.S. Distance National Championships in Fairbanks. Unfortunately, the only remnant of skiing are some ghost tracks I laid down in the season's first snowfall on December 1. I didn't realize that I was skiing on the freaking grass...
