I was a little curious as to how many runners got up early last Tuesday morning to run in the snow. Having a little snow in this area only happens a very few times and the chance to run in snow is like a oneday occasion and if you miss the opportunity you may have to wait another year or more for another chance. This started me thinking about running in races or weather conditions that offer a runner to try. I tried to remember some of my one time runs in unusual circumstances. I mentioned running in below zero temperatures in several inches of snow for one such run. Another time I visited Flagstaff, Arizona to see some friends and the organizers had a 10-mile race in a forest of pine trees. Another one-time chance to run in a race that I had never tried. It was a fun race until about five miles into the race. I was a middle of the pack runner and I couldn’t see the lead pack of runners and the slow pack of runners were out of sight behind me. When you see a split in the trail and wonder which one to take in the middle of a forest, I could envision myself wandering around in a forest for a week trying to find my way back. Fortunately, I caught a glance of a few of the lead runners at the end of one of the trails. I look back on my choice and think I may have taken a short cut to that trail I saw runners passing by. At the time finding a trail that led back to the finish line was a better option than being lost in the pines.
Reading about some other unusual races makes running in an inch of snow may seem as a common run for people in the north or Midwest part of the country but for here it was an unusual run. The marathon in Antarctica would be a race not many people have tried. Running up Pikes Peak is another race to try. I talked with a friend of mine who has run it several times and running up Pikes Peak is only half of the race. The other half is running back down. He said if I enter, run the up portion as the down portion is very hard on the thigh muscles, the knees, and the feet jamming into the toe of your shoe. And there are enough runners that do both portions of that race.
My sister in Maine has a son that enters these difficult and unusual races. One is up a mountain path in the middle of the winter. Snow and cold are a typical race day. The thought of running a race like that makes a person think only a few runners would even try it. The cut off is 1500 runners and you have to enter very early or miss out getting a spot. He had to ask his mother, who knows one of the race directors, to see if he could get a ticket to enter the race. The race is also held in the summer under much more favorable conditions and is just as crowded.
