The roads did not disappoint. Multiple stretches required driving 25 mph in a 65 mph zone due to the complete lack of being able to see anything, including the road. Those moments are terrifying, hence the term 'white-knuckle driving'. The wind was battering my car around the road, while most vehicles were displaying their hazard lights while driving, simply so other drivers could see them from 50 feet away instead of 20. It was during one of the moments of least visibility that I had a sudden realization: I desperately wanted to go for a run in this.
There's something that I believe is in all of us; an urge to explore the unknown and push the boundaries of what we can do. For some, it's making new recipes, while for others it's jumping out of a spaceship many miles above the surface and parachuting all the way to the ground. Being a normal human being, I experience much the same feelings. Through running I test the limits of my own body, mind, and spirit. Anybody can work out when they feel good, but when a person's comfort zone is broken and pain starts to seep in, that's when the real work of growth begins. My point is this: bad weather gets me excited because it means I will go for a run. I'm not looking for some sort of test against Nature, being it will win every time. No, what I'm looking for is to feel something so much stronger than myself that my only option is to submit and learn from it. I wanted to run in this blizzard because I wanted to learn. I wanted to feel fragile. I wanted to lose.
I stepped outside into a war.
Though I was protected from the brunt of the attack, heavy snow fell and was captured by 50+ mph wind gusts. The snow would race across the ground like a herd of deer seen from the sky. The snow would fly past above my head, much like rain during a strong summer thunderstorm. The sound of the wind blowing through the trees was similar to having semi-trucks driving close by on an interstate. I took a few moments to absorb it all, and then I went back inside to get another layer; it was cold out.
It seems that everyone in the north country has a blizzard story. Whether it's something tragic of a past relative who died in one, or simply an historic one that dumped globs of snow- we all seem to have one. As a lover of weather, I love hearing those stories, but more importantly I love living them. I double-layered the running pants, double-layered the running long-sleeve shirts underneath the running jacket, grabbed some heavy gloves, and added a pair of sunglasses to complement my hat. I figured that if sunglasses can protect my eyes from sunglare off of the snow, then they maybe could stop the snow from tearing my eyes apart as well. So I ran in the blizzard with sunglasses.
I started jogging down the road, headed for the open country. Trees regally guarded both sides of the road, protecting the wind so that it was only slightly intrusive. As I came up to the mailbox- my escape from protection- I could only see a mile or so off into the distance because of blowing snow. I started to get excited about what was going to happen. White powder rushed across the road and down the hill, scuttling across the lake, headed for wherever the low pressure was at that point. Under an overcast, un-seeable March sky, I turned the corner and faced the elements of Nature.
Well, actually I embraced the elements. You see, we have a tendency to think that we always have to 'fight' the weather and the outdoors. We fight the cold, the heat, the wind, the rain, the snow, and anything we come across. We try to make up for this by inventing air conditioning, heating, rain-proof everything, snowblowers, and enclosure that block out everything. I believe that Nature is something to be worked with and learned from, not fought against. When the wind is howling in such an intimating fashion, it's a reminder of the power and force of everything we can't control. Why try to control it? We have amazingly sophisticated technology, but tornadoes and hurricanes- which can be reasonably well predicted- devastate homes and families every year. The fact is that whenever we fight Nature, we will lose.
I was reminding myself of this as I ran down the first stretch of gravel- due north and almost directly into the pulverizing Northwest wind. My hat was woefully inadequate (a theme of my whole running career unfortunately; I did in fact sustain slight frostbite on my ear one time on a windy day in college) and the wind was finding every single crevasse possible. That's another interesting tidbit about wind of that chill and magnitude: it exposes your weaknesses. If there are any openings on your body, the wind will find a way in and make you miserable. In this case, I would periodically have to turn my head to the side for a few moments to give that side of my face (and that ear) necessary recovery. All of my thoughts revolved around surviving the first mile so I could turn and have the wind at my back. Then, I reasoned, everything would be fine. I finally made it to the corner, after a paltry first mile of 7:49, and turned east for the next mile.
Once the wind was at my back, I recognized two things immediately: the first was that my breathing sounded like I had just finished a workout, and the second was that I wasn't going to slow down at all this mile. When the wind blows this hard, the feeling is actually similar to running down a steep hill- short, choppy strides, and a lot of tension on the quads in an attempt to slow down. In this case, the wind literally blows you forward, and more effort is exerted in slowing down rather than speeding up. Oftentimes when the gusts push me forward on the road, I laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all, and the despair of realizing I'll eventually have to turn around. The mile went by quickly, and I could feel the cold air finding the sweaty spots on my shirt and making them cold. After a quick stretch of relative recovery, it dawned on me that it was time head back.
I realized that this was going to be rough. The first 1/3 of the mile would be up a decent hill, directly into a 40 mph sustained wind with gusts up to 52 mph, coupled with snow and wind chills just a tish below zero. I muttered aloud a quick prayer for strength and safety (I couldn't hear it), turned around, and began the next mile. As promised, it was brutal and horrible. Running at an effort similar to 'as hard as I can possibly go', the wind still would almost completely stop me in my tracks. It's hard to describe the power of this wind: each time I lifted my leg forward was an effort similar to the end of a race with lactic acid buildup. I had my head down and tried to survive assault after assault from the brutality of Nature. I knew not where the hill ended- indeed I couldn't look up to see it, but rather that I would somehow get to the top. At this point, it was survival.
While climbing, I remembered all that I learned about peace this summer. When something like the wind batters you around, don't fight and curse it. The wind is there to make you stronger and you can learn from it. Living life in the negative will see you end up as a bitter, unsatisfied person. I often find myself laughing when crappy weather befalls my runs, because life is more interesting that way. I let the weather surprise me and give me something to think about and notice. Sure, sometimes I get the wind knocked out of me (excuse the pun), but it's all worth it in the end. I watched a group of Canadian geese fly up out of a nearby field, worried about me for some odd reason. They frantically tried to form their V-shape to continue north to Canada, but the wind tore their alignment to pieces. They continually faced directly into the wind and flapped their wings with fervor, but made no forward progress. Once they reached exhaustion, they'd let the wind take them down towards the ground and to the south. Eventually, they'd plop back on the ground and sit, usually farther away from their destination than when they started. They fought, and they lost.
I was trying to not fight. I moved my head from side to side, trying desperately to protect exposed skin on my neck while using super-human efforts to pick up one leg at a time. About halfway through the mile, I needed a rest, so I turned around and started running backwards. I'd imagine I made for quite an absurd sight: on some gravel road in the middle of the North Dakota prairie during a blizzard, a blaze orange hat-wearing person running backwards. I took this time to assess how I was doing. My recovering knee was starting to flare up again with some pain, my hips were exhausted, my neck and ears were freezing, and I was a mile from where I needed to get to. I've had worse.
That's the mantra of plains people: it could be worse. We've seen almost every kind of weather that this planet can offer, and each of those kinds come in many forms every year. We learn about our own weakness and fragile nature from storms that destroy homes, snowstorms that keep us homebound, and intense droughts and hailstorms that ruin crops. It was, at this moment on the gravel road, that I reached the point that I was- oddly enough- hoping to reach: a point of complete submission to the elements. It's when you look up at the sky and say "You win". It's the 100 degree day when the sweltering sun finally beats you; It's the hail that punctures windows and hurts trees; It's the brutal cold that seeps into your bones; It's the blizzard that comes up the day after a legitimate taste of spring. We learn that maybe we don't control this Earth in the way that we puff out our chests and say we do. We learn that our bodies, minds, and spirits can have limitations. We even learn that sometimes we need to rely on things outside of ourselves in order to survive.
And so it was, that I received a favorable wind for last mile, tenderly jogging my knee back to the cabin, and arrived.
"How was your run?" I was asked.
My beard was covered with ice, my ears were cold, my heart was beating quickly, and my ears were ringing from the loudness of the wind. My knee was a little sore, my body broken, and my heart happy.
"Good" I replied. And I smiled.
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