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VIEWPOINT: PETER HADZIPETROS: BACK OF THE PACKHey! It's my road too!
The first weekend of April was anything but lamb-like. Our final long Sunday run before heading south to Boston had to be the toughest of the year. A hefty 28 kilometres in a combination of ice pellets, snow, sleet, rain and high wind.
For a couple of K's, the wind was driving the ice pellets in a horizontal plane, right into our faces. They tell me people spend big money to get exfoliated like that. I've never run so far with one eye closed and the other open just enough to make out shapes and colours.
Conditions did improve to just plain miserable, though, as we slogged our way through slush and mush on the roads. Seems the sad state of spring was getting to the folks in the cars, too. Way more of them than normal were eyeing us angrily, as we occupied a sliver of their roads.
If I didn't know better, I'd think a few were actually aiming for us. Got me to thinking, after we all traded middle digit salutes.
It's not our first choice to be running on the roads. We really do value our health.
I crave running on the trails, with dirt and leaves cushioning my feet, watching the deer and the antelope play - and hawks grabbing pigeons in mid-flight and feasting on them in the brush. It's not an option in the early spring, when craters dredged by chunks of ice flowing down the Credit River wait to swallow you.
There are times, even when conditions are bad, that the road is the safest place to be. God knows the sidewalks present their own dangers. Their concrete surface is actually much harder on the legs than the forgiving asphalt of the road. They get iced up far more quickly than the roads.
And down here in the urban jungle, if packs of marauding pit bulls aren't wandering the sidewalks, hunting for spandex-encrusted legs to latch on to, you've got baseball bats, bicycle chains and stray bullets to deal with as the Jets and the Sharks recreate West Side Story.
Concede a little room on the roads for us. It's in your best interest.
You see, it's like this. The more road you give us, the more we will run. The more we run, the healthier we will be. The healthier we are, the longer we will live. The longer we live, the longer we work and pay ever-increasing taxes to fund the health care you're going to need if you don't get out from behind the wheel of that car and join us on the road.
So give us some space. We'll be back on the trails before you know it.
Well, it's time to retract again into that pre-race shell and do some pondering. Another Boston beckons as the training winds down.
Yeah, I've got a goal or two in mind for the marathon - mainly to run smarter and not let the course beat me up for a third time. Easier said than done, as those first few downhill miles inflict more damage than you realize by the climbs at mile 20 - especially if the weather decides to get actively involved, like it has the past two years.
Still, it was a bit of a confidence-builder wrapping up the final half-dozen kilometres of the last longish pre-Boston run, going step for step with Kevin, a guy I normally see in the first couple of kilometres of a run - and then later at the coffee shop. Kid's about 15 years and 40 pounds south of me.
Boston. Bring it on.
The roads are for vehicles, not for people. If you can't run on the trails
go to the gym.
Garry Webb
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Peter Hadzipetros writes background and indepth features
for CBC News Online. Until he got into long distance running a few years ago,
he was a net importer of calories. He's run several marathons, including two Bostons.
In Oct. 2004, he recorded a PB of 3:09.21 in Columbus.
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