Cold Run and Gummy Bear Massacre

A lot of things to talk about regarding today's run. It was definitely a weird one.

As I am getting ready I look outside to see what the weather looks like. It looks amazingly cold outside, but the thing I notice most is the police officer pulled over to the side of the road across the street. He is getting out of his car and looking along the ground for something. He gets back in his car and drives away. Hmm. Weird.

So I go outside to start my warm up. It is amazingly cold outside. The coldest I have run in ever, but I am enjoying it for some reason. As I am warming up and stretching another cop car pulls up and two cops get out. They0 start walking through a small bunch of trees across the street with flashlights looking for something along the ground. I take off down the street, expecting them to stop me and ask if I have noticed anything, but they just say good morning and I am on my way.

On Sundays I usually run down to a battlefield park that is down the street from me, along the river. As I started my run I began to tell myself that I may cut it short, because it is so cold. I do this sometimes, but as usual when I get to the point where I might turn around I just keep running and finish the whole distance as planned.

About half way through my run I see some colored spots along the ground. It took me a minute to figure out what it was, but finally I realized that it was gummy bears. Tons of them all over the side of the road. It was a massacre. Perhaps the cops were looking for their killers.

I also passed a guy walking his dog this morning. He was bundled up pretty good and trying to block himself from the wind. He pulled his dog close as I ran by. I smiled and said good morning and he nodded back with a very puzzled look on his face and said good morning. He really did think I was crazy.

On my way back I passed another guy. This one was sitting on his porch smoking a cigarette. At the time I was taking a short walk break. I said good morning with a smile, and he said the same. Since I was walking he also had time to say "one day we sweat, the next day we freeze." He was referencing the fact that the weather this past week had been so nice you would actually sweat pretty easy, and now it was freezing cold. I agreed with him, but then realized...

I always sweat... and I picked up the pace and finished running.

I finished this run in a 10:55 pace or so... still pretty slow, but it is a great improvement. This was my third run in a row breaking 11:00 pace.