Nighttime Track Practice

If you were standing on the surface of the sun and looking toward the Earth, its tiny size might lead you to think that the way it tilts as it spins in orbit would not affect the inhabitants much. The whole planet just isn't that large (in cosmic terms), and 93 million miles is pretty far away. I mean, if you have a foot-high space heater in your bathroom, it can toast your toenails rapidly if you're within a meter of it. But if you walked away to where it was just a dot on the landscape, it wouldn't influence you at all, no matter which way you happened to lean.

But the fact is that a few degrees of slant actually does make a huge difference to our little globe -- meaning that we sweat like pigs when we're tilted toward the sun and we freeze our earlobes off when we're tilted away. It seems silly to put up with this when a few strategically-placed rockets could be used to correct the Earth's wobble within a few thousand years.

Why are we not working on this?

Oh yeah, I forgot; "climate change" is evil for some reason. OK, then how about this? What if we put each city on a system of rails so that we could move them north or south as comfort dictated? We could even keep some cities in perpetual summer, and make others into permanent winter wonderlands. Of course, to make room for the rail system, we'd have to do away with a few towns that would be in the way, but places like Oakland, Wichita, and Norman, Oklahoma certainly wouldn't be missed by any civilized people. So why not?

It wouldn't cost us anything. (Well, OK, it would require raising taxes on the rich, but they're not "us", and our leaders have constantly assured us that there are no conceivable negative consequences from turning rich people into poor people.) We should definitely go for it.

Of course, such humongous infrastructure transformations do take time, so for the moment we seem to be stuck with the disruptive effects of changing seasons. This means that it gets dark quite early in December, and that local running tracks get covered with snow. And herein lies our tale for today.

My brother and I decided to try running on the track at our "normal" time...which because of the shortening daylight is now after the sun has set. We knew it would be dark, and we also knew that there would be some snow on the track. We brought headlamps, and were mentally prepared for some questionable footing.

We probably didn't need the headlamps; there was enough light from the school, the roads, and reflection off the snow to make unaided navigation possible. But the running surface was a challenge. They had plowed about 100 yards of the track, but meltage from nearby drifts had flowed across the track and refrozen to leave an invisible film of slickness on the part that looked clean. The rest of the oval was either completely snowcovered, or mottled with footprint holes and surrounding ridges. Retaining verticality would be a challenge.

Pat handled it much better than I did. Either he has better balance than I do, or just less fear of taking a tumble. He probably considered the risks to be potential minor scrapes and bruises from losings one's balance -- whereas I kept visualizing horrid bloody death from being impaled on an icicle or from splitting my skull when my head smashed into a surface rendered unyielding by Winter's remorseless cruelty. He may have run at a 10-15% slower pace than normal, but I was a full 50% more slothlike.

It was still good exercise. I was working hard -- it's just that the effort went more into balance and foot placement than it did to speed and forward motion. I had a good turnover rate -- I was pumping my legs and churning my arms like Maurice Green, but I had the stride length of Gary Coleman. I know I worked hard because when we finished the workout, there was steam coming off every part of my body.

Will I do it again? Sure! I may also look for other places to do speedwork (on a treadmill, perhaps?), and I may make myself some screwshoes...but there's no reason to remove sprint training from my winter workout plan.

Of course, I also wouldn't object if Mother Nature decided to throw in a few good melting days before next week. I love the beauty of snow, and without the whiteness of a blanketed landscape the headlamps may truly become necessary...but I have to believe that running on a dry track would provide a more valuable training opportunity for me right now. Outside of town, though -- hey, knock yourself out. Dump all the snow you want west of Kipling. In fact, that would give me incentive to get out the snowshoes -- so go for it!

For now, though, I'm just happy to be free of injuries and am enjoying the season. I haven't heard any political candidates backing my "fix global tilting with polar rockets" idea, but if I do, well, that's the one who will get my vote. I hope you're with me on this, but either way, I hope you are enjoying this fabulous December. Have a great day!