A Crunchy Crunchy New Year

The January issue of Runners World magazine arrived in the mail yesterday and it was just what I needed to get my arse moving again. I strapped on the Yak-Trax and DH accompanied me on his bike with the kiddos in tow. We did our typical route with a twist... rather than a loop, we went out in one direction for 2 miles and then turned around and came back home. A solid 4 miles. The ground was crunchy! Packed snow and ice ... treacherous without trax. DH's bike even slipped out from beneath him at one point and he had to jump off. Fortunately, he caught himself.

I ran Garmin free but I did peek at the time on my simple Timex when I turned around (18:50) and again when I returned home (36:30). Negative splits! Perhaps that should be a goal for all my runs in 2008?

It felt so incredibly good to get out again. I've missed the road. What is amusing is that the other night, as we were flipping channels, we came across What Women Want and watched it for a short time. It's an easy, no thinking required, movie... just what we were looking for before we decided to go to bed. Anyway, we had tuned in just as Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is pitching his idea (the one he stole from Darcy) to the ad execs of Nike.

I had forgotten about that part of the film. His words and the clips of the woman running alone on a rainy day moved me. I wanted to get out there on the road myself. The road called to me. It says a lot about this film that the most moving moment it provides is a Nike commercial for female runners created by the real-life Weiden-Kennedy Agency of Portland.

I couldn't find the commercial as shown in the movie ... but there are a number of great ads from the past on their website. Here's one for the New Year, Long Long Run.

Run Long and Strong, My Friends.

Happy New Year!