Then came my divorce, and the posts stopped. I had... other things on my mind.
Since my remarriage to a wonderful woman and gaining two amazing stepdaughters, the posts have taken a much more personal turn. Heck, when so much starts going right after it went wrong for so long, how could I NOT write about it?
Running was always a therapy exercise for me. So, these days, when I run, my mind drifts back to where I am now, and what I had to go through to get here. Consequently, so do my posts about running.
And, in case you don't live in the Bluegrass State of Kentucky, there is currently a lot of snow on the ground. Like, a lot. A lot, a lot. Eleven inches of snow in eight hours.
My wife snuck a picture as I was shoveling the driveway. You never appreciate the varying topography of your driveway until you have to shovel almost a foot of snow off it.
School's been cancelled for two days in a row. Hillary and I have been stuck inside with our four- and five-year old daughters. And, even with as much as we love each other, all of us were starting to get cabin fever.
Hillary's parents took the girls for a few hours this afternoon.
Hillary went to get a diet coke.
And I went for a run.
I've got to hand it to Woodford County: the roads of our subdivision looked amazing this afternoon. The road crews must have been scraping for hours, because not only were the roads clear, but the sun had even dried up most of the remaining slush. So, for the isolated roads of the sub, the running was smooth.
Sidewalks, however, hadn't been shoveled at all. On the contrary: all the snow pushed off the road had to go somewhere, making drifts on sidewalks upwards of three feet high.
So I hit the local bike path, and broke out these bad boys: ice grippers that fit over the bottoms of my running shoes.
I didn't take into account that they'd be less effective when the snow is past my calves. Still, better than nothing.
There are a few things about running through deep snow that I didn't consider before lacing up.
- The energy needed to lift my legs high out of the snow drifts.
- The energy needed to fight the drag from snow, even when only the tips of my toes dragged through it.
- The energy needed to compensate every time my feet landed and slipped at an angle other than 'straight forward'.
- Basically a whole lot of energy factors that wore me down, quickly.
Immediately, I noticed that I wasn't the only one crazy enough to go for a run today. There was one set of footprints in the deep snow, not very old. I tried my best to stay in them: less snow to haul with my shoes meant more energy I could use for running.
Despite my best efforts to stay in the established footprints, the run was slow and difficult. And then I came to something I didn't expect.
The footprints stopped.
Though there hadn't been anything to indicate such, I had assumed that I could follow these footprints as far as I wanted to go. I trusted that someone else had been ahead of me, had laid a path I could follow. There was something strangely daunting about being the one to blaze on past those footprints, and I'm not talking just the tole it was going to take on my already tired (and cold) legs.
But I wasn't done with my run. So I pressed on.
It was difficult. For a while, I wanted to stop and rest. But that wasn't really an option; if I stopped, then I was simply standing in foot-deep snow, getting colder by the second. If I wanted to stay warm, and watched to reach the end, I had to keep moving, no matter how slowly.
Eventually I'd had enough, and I came to a cross-road that had been plowed by the persistent Woodford County road crew. I stopped to catch my breath, and when I turned around, the only footprints I saw were my own.
They took a while to make. They left me tired and sore, and the thought of having to go through them again to get home was intimidating. But they were mine, and someone else could walk in them if they came this way, just like the first set I had used.
There are a lot of metaphors in this entry for my trials of the last two/three years.
I eventually made it back to the paved, easy roads of my subdivision. And it, like many subdivisions, is full of large plots of land simply waiting for some enterprising developer to snatch up and fill with affordable luxury homes.
Someone else got to a particularly large, undeveloped plot today, though, and left a message for all to see.
I don't know who turned this field into a giant Etch-a-Sketch, but I was glad they did. Because, even though I looked back and saw only one set of footprints, I knew He was still with me the entire way. Sometimes, God doesn't carry you; instead, he simply whispers, quietly, "Just one more step."
