Running In A Winter Wonderland

Back in mid-November YHC told The End that I needed the some Sunday morning motivation to post at The Commons in December, so we agreed on a Q slot. Little did I know what the forecast would hold for this morning. I saw early in the week that we may be dealing with a very cold very wet hour of running, so I cooked up a fartlek plan that would keep our minds occupied on running instead of being cold and wet then I drifted off to dreamland.

When I awoke and saw the beautiful blanket of snow covering the gloom, I knew we’d have to scrap that plan and save it for another day. Weather like this is destined for sight seeing and playing games. I reworked the route to allow for better scenery and tossed out the idea of fartleks because of the slick conditions.

Once everyone arrived (we missed you Tortoise) we departed Town Common to the south. We ran to ECU to take a picture with the new architecture on 10th Street, then we wound our way through a beautiful snow covered campus stopping for a bit of fun at the musical columns, tossing a few snow balls and otherwise admiring the beauty of our city. We made our way up College Hill and across by the football stadium until we came to Fieldside Dr. where we turned and saw a quaint little cluster of Christmas trees that were begging to be photographed. Then we ran by the Clark-LeClair and over to Fleet Feet for some dry socks, but they were closed and Footloose hadn’t joined us with his keys so we took another picture and ran around the parking lot under the cover of the canopy because the gentle snow had turned to freezing rain. We stopped by WITN to see if our weatherman friends could help us out with the worsening conditions, but they were otherwise occupied and didn’t have time for the wandering drifters. We ran back through the parking lot and String Bean suggested a lap around the inside of Publix, but since GPS doesn’t work so well inside and if it wasn’t on Strava it doesn’t count, we decided to pass on that plan and make our way back to the flag via Cotanche. The conditions were worsening by the minute and String Bean got a face full of street water when a passing vehicle splashed him with the slush. We were starting to lose our footing and The End and YHC each took a slip across from Domino’s. Finally we made it back to the flag chilled, but better for it. You can check Strava and Twitter for pictures of our adventures today.

Huge congratulations to Floater for hitting 1,000 miles on the year during this morning’s run!

Prayer Requests

– String Bean’s Aunt recovering from surgery
– Praise for some changes coming for Floater
– The End’s 2.0 having nasal surgery this week
– Nice Body’s granddad in the hospital with heart problems

Announcements

– Tuesday The Grand Tour hits RunStrong for the ghosts of site Qs past
– Tuesday night is the wrapping party at Cypress Glen (message Gazelle for details)
– The Commons start time changing to 5:30 starting in January to make room for Q Source.
– Q Source starting the first Sunday in January after The Commons
– Want to read the Bible in 2019? Join YHC and Gazelle Wednesday nights for Theology by Fire. We’re going to be using the ReadScripture reading plan and app. This is something Gazelle and I have benefitted from so much in 2018 that we want to open it up to everyone and shift the focus of Theology by Fire to be centered around the things we’ve noticed as we read the Bible together throughout the week. If you have questions, reach out to YHC or Gazelle, we’d love to chat with you about this.

It’s always an honor to Q and I hope everybody else had as much fun as I did this morning even through it was a bit messy out there. Way to choose The Toughest Thing guys!