It's the half-assed ones

This was after my run, but it hasn't changed much since this morning.

This is actually a really hard temperature to dress for. Get the layering wrong and you'll be drowning in sweat, or freezing your tail off. There's only so much adjustment you can make on the run.

Today I went with the usual shoes and socks, no yak trax or anything like that. One pair medium weight tights, no special wind or weather proofing. One short sleeved tech shirt, and the usual winter jacket. Gloves and a fleece hat finished it off. Not a coordinated fashion statement, but I don't care about that. For a guy my age, there's only one way a "fashion statement" goes, and it's not good.

Around the neighbourhood to stay out of the wind was perfect. I think if I'd been running into the wind or out on the exposed bike path for any length of time I'd have been looking for another layer.

5 K, 38 minutes, running carefully. We've had some melting the last few days, and a bit of snow overnight. There's a bit of moisture in the snow so it packs down a bit, and makes for surprisingly good footing, even over ice. Even with ice under the snow I don't slip much when I run, it's the walk before and especially after where I have to be careful.

Part of the trick is to land with your foot right under your centre of gravity, on your whole foot, or mid-foot. Not on your heel way out in front of you, or on your toes like a sprinter. It's too easy for your foot to slide out from underneath you. At best you'll land on your butt with nothing damaged but your pride. At worst you'll break something.

Some of the sidewalks were clean and bare, or well on the way to it. What's nice is that a couple of the people doing a good job pointed out icy bits. Running on that is good. Running on a sidewalk that was well shoveled and just has new snow on it is perfectly fine too. The snow is good footing. The bits along the curb to cross the roads are a bit tricky, but you know what's there, and it's good to do a bit of leaping and hopping.

What kills me is the half-assed shovel jobs. A meandering goat path in the snow. Only part of it done. One guy shoveled the driveway, and piled up the snow on the sidewalk. Jerk. One guy was using what looked like a toy shovel to push the snow around a bit, while smoking. He glared at me as I was going by, no doubt offended by the taint of clean living or something.

We even shoveled off the back patio yesterday. Two reasons. One is to get the snow onto the garden for the moisture when it melts, which is looking like next week. And the other is to get to the BBQ. We got a heck of a deal on Alberta rack of lamb, and it was awesome with a smokey barbecue rub Linda found, and a big Greek salad. Plus wine. Simple, easy, super-tasty!

Did you miss the latest visit of my inner shark?