3.4 miles
river road trail, north/south
28 degrees
100% snow-covered*
*At least half of the biking trail was a smooth, thin layer of packed snow. The other half was several inches of loose, uneven snow. In some of the packed down spots it was slick. Occasionally, there was a tall mound of snow where the plow had left the excess from its clearing of the road. The hardest part: running on the sidewalks on the way to the river, especially the ends of blocks when I had to navigate the unplowed parts of the road
On Friday afternoon into Saturday morning, it snowed. Here in southeast Minneapolis, we got about 10 inches of powdery, beautiful snow. Not too hard to shovel, fun to admire. There were more people on the trails than I would have thought. At least 2 groups of runners + lots of walkers. No fat tires or cross-country skiers. Across the way, on the hill from Edmund, a family was sledding. The parents were positioned at the bottom to block their kids from careening into the parkway.
10 Things I Noticed
- The loud, resonant knocking of a woodpecker near the old stone steps. Its knock echoed through the gorge
- A wedge of honking geese up in the sky. I couldn’t see them because I was too busy looking down at the trail, trying to avoid and/or prepare for slick spots
- The river burning white through the trees
- In many spots, a short, mid-calf wall of snow separating me from the road
- The unpleasantly loud scraping noise of a plow on bare pavement
- The smell of the sewer
- A kid laughing and calling out, “uh oh”
- The uneven arm swing of a runner ahead of me. One arm was high and tight, the other low and loose
- 3 runners passing me. I heard one of them say “professor” — maybe they said “class” too?
- The floodplain forest all white and brown. Some of the tree trunks were painted white on one side
When I got back from my run, Scott asked, “How was it?” I said, “You wouldn’t have liked it. It was slick and snow-covered and crowded, but I loved it!”