slop job mess

Front Street, Livingston

For my introductory post I chose a town run to establish my home base, Livingston. I have lived in 13 neighborhoods over the past 10 years and in every single one it had been my intention to document them photographically but it never happened and I am disappointed about the lost memories. I have lived in Livingston now for 1.5 years and I am finally going to break that cycle! I think the best way to explore your neighborhood is through running. Looking at the same houses everyday, learning the street names by heart, saying hi to the same people walking their dogs, watching the shop owners shoveling their sidewalks, seeing the river rise and fall with the seasons - it all makes you feel like you genuinely know something, like you belong to it. For training purposes I prefer to trail run, but the past couple of months I have been almost exclusively doing town runs since I have been going to school as a part time graduate student while still working about 30 hours a week. Just getting out the door is my main goal right now and probably will be until this spring when the mountain trails start to melt.

I went out for one of my established 5 mile town runs (I call it the Circle House Run) but I had to ratchet it down to a 3 miler after my stomach remembered that I had consumed an entire po'boy sandwich, a glass of wine, and a few spoonfuls of pumpkin pie filling only 2.5 hours earlier. Unfortunately I know from past experience in the eating-before-running department that its better to be safe than sorry. I was so happy to be out running in the daylight, something I haven't had a chance to do in a couple weeks. I tend to have visibility problems in the dark (read: face-planting) since Livingston doesn't have very many street lamps and a vicious wind that blows my ponytail into my eyes. Despite a tiny snow squall, the visibility today was decent. However, the street conditions offered up quite the buffet: clear asphalt, glare ice, crunchy ice-snow, soft powdered sugar snow, and hidden puddles of deep water - what my high school Spanish teacher would have called a "slop job mess." Sometimes running on the street in these conditions is almost as fun as trail running since it encourages what I call "engaged running" - having to pay close attention to foot placement to keep your feet dry or to avoid slipping. Its a lot more fun to zigzag, hop over puddles, and jib off of curbs and trees than just plodding along in a boring straight line.

I'm off for a Saturday night cocktail at one of the local establishments, cheers!