Every morning for the last month, I’ve woken to enormous gratitude for Global Warming, since I simply can’t imagine what life would be like without it right now. This morning 40-60 mph winds, a foot of snow, all on top of the nearly 30 inches we had earlier in the week. To celebrate today’s little bit of joy, I present a poorly-edited short highlighting the ‘best of’ this morning’s jaunt.

Running in the Snowy Bosom of the Free World, or a Running Fun Snowy Short from Peter Shoemaker on Vimeo.

As I do many mornings on the way to work, I stopped and ran. This morning, in another excellently clear demonstration of how I’m not quite right, I took advantage of the five or so inches of fresh snow to do a little trail boogying. That’s the proof of stupid. This picture is proof of beauty.

What a fantastic day to run: virgin snow (except for deer, fox, and a few bunny hops), muted crunchy footfalls, not another single living bipedal soul anywhere to be seen. Almost makes up for the fact that my 8-hour run this weekend has been postponed.

Almost.

Now that I’m running for fun as much as I am for anything else, I’m (re)discovering the joys of shorter distances. I’ve never been a 10-mile kinda guy, but the first Backyard Burn run of the quartet being held this Fall may change my mind. I had a superb time.

More to the point, as is almost always the point, at these sorts of events, the people were great. I mean, there was D back from the wars against evil; Bob too, and running also was the ever-lovely Kathleen, just off of a superb first half marathon. Amanda was out, spitting vinegar and ready to go despite a concerted effort to injure herself in almost every imaginable way (she quits running, again, down below). The family H was out serving as volunteers. And Mike came out for the sole purpose of doing a one man fireman’s carry of his wife back to the car. Yeah. It rocked.

Number 2 is this weekend. But first…some videos….

Here’s the thing: because I am slow, and usually come rolling in at the back of the pack, I never, ever, ever get to be one of those guys sitting in a nice comfy camp chair in my flip-flops cheering other runners as they come in. On Saturday, at about 4 pm, I was sitting in a nice comfy camp chair in my flip-flops cheering other runners as they came in.  Oh…and I was eating a hot dog (or two).

I signed-up to do the Triangle 12-hour adventure trail run mostly because I felt it would fit nicely into my training for my second 100 attempt in Feb. Instead, it convinced me that I could wait a bit on that hundred, that it wasn’t going anywhere, that I really enjoyed running and needed to get that feeling back without the pressure of the 100 sitting there. Staring at me. Unblinking. Like a raggedy-assed lycanthrope.  I didn’t hate the ten hours I spent out running this Saturday; I loved it. Those 40 miles seemed to just flow by. The lack of a particular distance, and the lack of a do-or-it’s-all-over mindset was wonderful. I found myself running just to run.

Yeah, I cranked off 40 miles in 10:07:36. Yeah, there were rocks and roots and a veritable hailstorm of acorns, and other things that make trail running fun. But, there was also the people – the wonderful fellow crazies that find the best thing – *the* funnest thing to do on a gorgeous Saturday in early fall – is to run around in circles in the woods. Amanda was there, banging out her longest run evar; Bob was there smoking between laps and trying to keep the sucking wounds in his side from being too distracting; Kate – whose pace is just like mine except she’s better at it, and who I discovered lives across the street from me – ran a couple of laps avec moi before digging in and smoking me; Patrick who just blew the field away cranking out 71 miles in 12 hours; the RDs Alex and Scott maestroing to beat the band, and all the incredible volunteers just made the day superb.

So…I’m taking time off from my fanatical pursuit of the 100 miler, and am going to focus on 50Ks, 50Ms, and other stuff that I find fun. First up? The incredibly fun-sounding Backyard Burn Trail Running Series: 4 races, 10M a pop, in 4 different NOVA parks.

Coming in at the end of the race from Peter Shoemaker on Vimeo.

Tom’s Run hurt. It hurt a lot. But, like everything but death, we humans have great capacity for getting over it and coming back for more.

I’m back.

In mid-September I’m going to wade into a 12 hour run with Bob (the intrepid 100 miler *finisher, btw* from Tom’s Run), Amanda (who crewed like a mad dog for me at Tom’s, suffering through those last 14 miles with me), and Dan (my equally intrepid business partner). It’ll be a funfest. Goal=live to tell about it. Subgoal (that I’m not telling anyone) = run 40 miles.

Woo-freakin-hoo (and stuff).