Snow Run

17.5 miles in the snow and ice today. Both physically and mentally taxing and yet at the same time very soothing in the quiet white it offers. I have a love/hate affair with snow running. My preference is to enoy motion and encumbered by the danger of ice and the slow stride presented by snow. It tires the legs quicker and makes 10 miles feel like 20. Not bad when you're only running 10. But with 20 on the plate...it's another matter all together. And yet there is a solitude that snow gives to even familair running paths and its shared with the few other runers that brave the cold and ice - as if an aloneness has been expanded to allow just one more. Even the crunch of foot steps is quickly given over to the the greater silence snow brings to the running field. Snow spiritualizes the run in a unique way that heat and rain simply can't for reasons only the soul knows for certain. Running in the snow is tough, hard work, most often I would wish to skip it altogether. But when it snows - I'm out there. Running. And I'm always better for it.