February 2021 Monthly Running Challenge

shanaber wrote: »

@Teresa502 - That sounds like a great Challenge! Were's the requisite medal and swag picture though?

rheddmobile wrote: »

I wasn’t sure today whether I was going to run or tough it out on the stationary bike. Running in the snow last time was fun in a kind of “well now I can say I’ve done that” way, but I felt no urgent need to repeat the experience. Plus we got another several inches of snow today.

But then we had a minor crisis - I was unable to get bird seed anywhere. Kroger delivered yesterday but the only seed they had left was one small bag of cockatiel feed which lasted my cold feeder birdies less than a day. Home Depot had seed but cancelled all deliveries due to weather. Amazon not delivering. Roads completely undriveable. I felt miserable after doing my stretches outside and watching the little juncos and sparrows hopefully pecking at nothing and looking at me trustingly. Little birdies like that can die literally overnight in very cold weather if they don’t have food to power their little engines. I was complaining when I thought, hey, Home Depot is really not that far, why not run there?

We never go in that direction when running because the roads are very unsafe. There’s a big bridge and overpass, and the bridge has a homeless encampment underneath it, and there are people coming off the overpass in all directions at highway speeds, and no sidewalks. Nearer my house there is a half mile stretch of road with MORE THAN ONE cross with stuffed animals piled next to it marking the death of a child pedestrian. The city took notice of TWO little children on two separate occasions getting flattened, lowered the speed limit put in a bike lane here, and in order to gently encourage the absolute nitwits to not drive in the bike lane, they put a parking lane between the road and the bike lane. So what do people do? Now they use the bike lane to illegally pass on the right whenever anyone drives the speed limit.

So yeah, we don’t run there, because we like living! But! Today it’s snowing and Memphians are allergic to snow! So no cars on the road.

Home Depot turns out to be only a mile and a half away. Snow still pretty deep and now there is a layer of ice in there, but we made a little better time than last run since it was packed better, first mile was 13 minutes even with frequent stops to get off the road and stand in the bushes and wait as cars passed. There were a few cars after all, but not nearly as many. The bridge was a little hair raising (no sidewalks and no shoulder) but most people were willing to hog the center of the road and let us have the sides. The homeless have hopefully found shelter elsewhere. Had to wait 15 minutes for Home Depot to sort out our order, and then we were on our way home with 28 lbs of birdseed!

I have always been tempted to do a ruck run. My husband, who was an Airborne Ranger, was not so enchanted by the idea. We don’t own backpacks anymore since ours were stolen, so we weren’t sure how we planned to get sacks of seed home. But we have swag bags! So we put our arms through the straps and clipped the swag bags in front with carabiners (also from swag bags) and it worked pretty well.

Birdies were so pleased to see me! It felt very gratifying to watch my yard full of dozens of birds making up for lost time stuffing their faces.

View from the bridge over the Nonconnah, covered in snow.


Gerry-rigged swag bag rucksack!

rheddmobile wrote: »

Eaglesfanintn wrote: »

Where I was the footing was crazy! My husband and I rescued three stuck cars during a four mile run! It was actually worse than before it started to thaw.

We had all sorts of conditions: ankle deep slush, narrow icy ruts from traffic, broken water mains (two!) making ankle deep floods, and one backroad which had a surface exactly like a well-groomed skating rink. Turns out my Salomons are groovy on ice, but my husband’s Merrills are not. On the other hand he can run in churned up ice much better than I can. I just can’t handle it when I don’t know how deep it’s going to be each time I push off.

It was a fun if slow run and the sun was beautiful. Also I felt really boss being able to rock a car out with just one other person helping.

As we turned onto our road we saw a car coming so we started to get up on the sidewalk until we realized the car was driving backwards. “What on earth?” my husband said, and I said, “Bet you he pulled out, couldn’t get up the hill, tried to turn around and drive back home and couldn’t turn.” Yep! That was exactly what had happened. We watched the guy back up a quarter mile down the street to his driveway and back into his driveway. “Better part of valor?” I asked and he said, “I am telling my manager to get stuffed.”

Still under a boil water alert, which is irritating, and our heater died this morning which is even more irritating. But I saw a nuthatch, so that’s good! All the birds were so delighted at the nicer weather that they could barely find time to eat, they were soaring and singing too much!

This hill was slick enough that we took a break and went skating on it.

Sorry to hear about your heater and water situation. I feel very fortunate that despite the weather and cold temps, we've had nothing more than two brief internet interruptions. Good job with the cars!