[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[at-l] winter strolling



Well, for whatever the reason it is that encourages otherwise potentially sane people to make a commitment in a new year to a lifestyle change when they would never think of such a thing on May 11th or October 23rd or even at the summer solstice, my wife and I have decided that we should attempt to hike every day of the year for 2005.  I have been a relatively consistent runner for years but a heel injury suffered late last summer has really restricted my ability to run on a consistent basis since.  Walking, however, has not been a problem (much less heel strike pressure) and a pair of Garmont low hikers that I picked up this fall is well on its way to proving to be the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever owned.  Dry too.  We?ve always loved hiking but often have not been too regular at it.  Perhaps we could convince ourselves that this year will be different.  This particular ?resolution? may have been made easier by a much warmer than average start to the year.  It was in
 the low fifties on January 1st.  The climate gods were doing their best to suck us in.

 

Initial thoughts revolved around taking advantage of the plethora of trails in the many metroparks in our community.  This worked great on the Saturday and Sunday that started this particular version of a year and gave us the opportunity on Saturday to try out a loop trail at one of the area parks that we don?t often frequent as well as returning on Sunday to another old favorite park.  I even saw an eagle swooping low over the river in the park, seeking prey.  A very nice start for us in comfortable conditions.  Reality raised its ugly head on Monday the 3rd however when we realized that our work schedules pretty much coincided with the daylight hours in our particular part of northwest Ohio at this time of year.  Since the metroparks all close at dark, we decided that the fines for trespassing violations would increase our investment beyond what we hoped would be a moderately lost cost activity.  So the first modification to the resolve has taken place: not all of our walking would
 be on designated trails.  While we have used a linear bike/walking trail that?s only a few miles from home and it doesn?t observe the daylight only restrictions, we feared that the singular lack of changing views might be mindnumbing after a while and prove to be our undoing from a motivational perspective.  So we are mixing that up with tramps through the neighborhood streets and with the park sojourns on the weekends.  Heck, this last Wednesday evening we even resorted to forty-five minutes worth of multiple laps in the local mall after a particularly uninviting mix of snow, sleet and ice crust made walking on the roadways a major challenge to the integrity of our ankles.  At least the bad weather kept most people home and so we had the mall virtually to ourselves and could fool ourselves into thinking that we didn?t appear to be a part of the local ?mall walker crowd?.  Friday night brought seven inches of new powder to the area and left all the trees and bushes covered with that
 particularly appealing but rare for us appearance of bare limbs piled high with white frosting.  On the ground those same seven inches piled on to the four to five already in place from the aforementioned snow/sleet/ice crust of earlier in the week.  So this weekend our hikes involved some wearying but satisfying trudges along fairly undisturbed trails.  Those sections where we broke trail through the winter white gave me pause to reflect and a newfound appreciation for those who are doing their winter hiking on the AT or in Colorado.  Real work that!  We managed to encompass a portion of the previous weekend?s floodplain trail in this Saturday?s hike and marveled at the change in perspective that the winter coating of white had made to our surroundings.  However the mallards seemed not to have noticed the change in their surroundings and were equally as pleased in the river as they had the previous weekend.  So anyway, nine days in to the new year and three to four miles every day
 to this point.  All is well so far.  In a couple of weeks we are off to northern Michigan for the weekend.  There should be lots of great opportunities there dodg snowmobiles on the trails if we don?t get snowbound.  We?ll see how this commitment goes in the long term.

Hey, the sun has come out as I finished writing.  Is it a good sign or a "sucker hole"?

 

Only 356 more days to go to successfully keep a resolution!

 

Kent Gardam

 


		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.