Winter Running

I am determined. To run. After doing Pilates for awhile, I was able to heal up my back and hip enough to start really running again. Lucky me, it is the depths of winter for me to get going! But since I am an Alaskan girl, what is a little cold and snow, eh? Sissy stuff. 

My favorite thing is running in the super-cold, or when it is snowing, and I have to cover my face. I am using a scarf now, but I am in search of the perfect winter face mask . . . anyone? Ideas? REI was out. 

Using a scarf over my face causes me to breath really heavy, and the moisture makes my eyelashes freeze. I have made the mistake -- more than once -- of having on eye make-up from the previous day, and the cold, plus my hot breath, forces it to slide down into pools of black tar, blurring my vision and stinging my eyes. Bad idea. Don't try it. 

I love running in the winter. It is fun. Yes, very fun. 

I was out the other day when it was 5 degrees in the morning. I saw only one other lady out walking in the frigid temperature. She saw me and said, "Are we crazy, or what?" I answered her with teeth chattering, "Yes, yes we are!" 

Sometimes, I am alone out there -- so very alone. Sometimes it feels like I am in another world completely. My hat and the snow causes a sort of tunnel-vision that leaves me alone with no view except the white snow beneath my running shoes. Having no vision, or view, makes me feel very aware of my body. There is nothing to look at but white, nothing to distract, so all I can do is feel. All I can feel is me moving forward -- sometimes painfully -- one forced step at a time. 

During these cold and alone times, I pray. I pray for help. I pray for encouragement to keep going. Sometimes I am answered in my head, and sometimes, often times, this is what I hear . . .

"HONK! HONK! HONK!" 

No, not honking from cars passing by saying, "Whoo Baby!" No, I rarely get honked at anymore. My honking comes from above me -- far above me -- just a little below Heaven really. It comes from . . . 

Geese. 

Perhaps you know this already, but the reason that geese honk at each other is because they are offering each other encouragement. They are basically communicating, "You can do it, keep going!" 

And in some of my coldest moments, when my face is frozen, and my legs can barely move, and there is no other living soul in sight -- I find I am not alone. Flying just above me, as if they are drawn to me like the woodland animals to Snow White, I find my flock of friends. They timely begin honking me along, letting me know, reminding me . . . I can do it, I just have to keep going!

Oh, and as a bonus just for me, they fly in a special formation. I hear the honking, I raise my head just a little to see my feathered-friends, and every time I find them flying in a V. How lucky am I? They fly in a "V" just for me! 

"V" for van Ormer, of course! (And Victory, too!) 

You are never alone. God answers your prayers! No matter how small.