Snow fun

Monday is long run day, normally around 90 minutes (the looong stuff will kick off in Feb) and 12-13 miles. I usually explore some of the trails in the hills around my house in Sheffield and usually love every minute of it. The recent snow has provided some of the most interesting running and beatuful views I have ever seen around my home town. Today was different...

Setting out at 8:00am I trudged through the slushy snow around my house knowing things would get decidedly fluffier as I ascended a few hundred meters. I couldn't know how right I was. As I got higher and higher the snow got thicker, the drifts got bigger and the light got flatter. At the highest point of my run I was faced with the horrible combination of drifts up to my waist and light so flat I could not tell what was a couple of centimetres of snow and what was a couple of feet! I was falling over every 20 paces and had a HR of ~160bpm whilst walking.

I seriously considered turning back, something I have never had to do in 8 years of running this road, but soldiered on eventually making it to the turn around and the descent back into Sheffield. This was not before having passed four abandonded off-road vehicles, most buried up to the windows with frost crystals having formed from the wind and ice making them look more like ice sculptures than modes of transport.

As I ran back into Sheffield I was reminded of a scene from the 1980s post-apocalyptic drama "Threads". Set in Sheffield it imagines a world where nuclear war did take place and at one point, as the residents of Sheffield flee to Bakewell to escape the fallout (probably over a route similar to mine today) the effects of a nuclear winter begin to take their toll, it didn't look all that disimilar today with a couple of notable exceptions:

1. Unlike the characters in the film I am now eating porridge typing a blog, something they were unlikely to manage even if they did make it to Bakewell.

2. I, unlike the lead character in "Threads", was not forced to eat a dead sheep to stay alive.

As said, notable exceptions.