Crazy Runners

There I was, running on the Burlington Bike Path, right next to Lake Champlain. It was raining, snowing, and blowing like crazy -- what Winnie the Pooh would have called extremely blustery. Suddenly, there was no protection; we were right on the water. Waves were crashing into the seawall below us, spray was everywhere (see photo by Jan Leja). It was like being inside an automatic carwash... and I was the car!

Readers of this blog know how I feel about baths. That's right; I'm not a fan. So I am still confused as to how exactly I found myself in that situation.

Here's what I do know. A few weeks ago, it was 70 degrees and clear. Slightly warm by April standards, but we'll take it. Since then, we have had two significant snowfalls. That first one caught me a little off-guard; you see, a yellow dog like me lives completely in the here-and-now. A few weeks of springtime, and I pretty much forget what snow is! So, during that first April snowfall, I jumped out the front door and stopped short. I stood there all confused for a moment, before jumping around, rolling, and playing like a puppy! Because snow rules! I was, I must say, a little surprised that Mark and I didn't hike and ski at Stowe. But he's in full marathon-cramming mode right now. So did we ski? No. Did we go for a 4-mile run in snow that was blowing sideways? Yes.

But the warm weather returned... until today which, as I said, is snowy again. It's May 9th! And every year three Sundays before the Vermont City Marathon, the entire Run with Jan group gets together in Burlington and runs 20 miles of the 26.2-mile VCM course. Usually I get left behind because both my owners, avid marathoners usually run all 20 and I generally am not invited on runs of over 13 miles. Well, Ali just ran a marathon last weekend (amazing job, by the way, and I will take partial credit as her training partner) and only ran 10 today. So who got to come along? That's right, yours truly!

So that, I suppose, is how I found myself in the dogwash that is the Burlington Bike Path. I will mention that, otherwise, it was a great group run; super people, all running together, all bundled up, most doing high mileage... very unique to have this many people all deranged enough to go running in conditions like this!

Running along that stretch of the Bike Path was scary. I hugged the fence away from the waves as close as I could, put my tail and head down, and sort of jogged through. I am going to guess that Alison got more soaked than she would have if I hadn't been slowing her down, but I didn't know what to do! What are these crazy runners thinking? Most normal people were home watching movies. But we were out running in all sorts of weather! Who are these people?