Frozen freezing rain on snow… (12km)

Today I headed up into the hills again.  Last night there had been some freezing rain, which down here in the city was already beginning to melt.  A constant drip-drip as shrinking icicles desperately clung like barnacles to just about everything.  The streets were strewn with salt and grit – the kind of stuff which makes mincemeat out of bare feet – so, alas, it was a day for the old huaraches.

As I headed into higher elevations, the streams of run-off snaking along the sides of the roads began to disappear.  Instead, a thin blanket of snow left over from a few days ago reasserted itself, and, coating the asphalt itself, a brittle, crunchy, reflective surface of frozen freezing rain began to make the going a little tentative.  Never mind, I thought, not long to the forest paths now, which shouldn’t be as slick as the ice-rink coating the road’s surface.

How fitting: it really nearly did become a dead end today on this path!

Well I was wrong.  The ice rink turned into a bobsled run over the inclines in the forest.  The paths themselves had been trodden down into a lethal fall, while the unpacked snow to either side broke into piercing sherds if I stepped into it.  It was like a thin sheet of glass molding itself to the underlying contour of snow.  Run slowed to walk, which in turn slowed to little more than a funereal pace.

Dressed only in a T-shirt, I’m glad I could keep up my inner warmth for that quarter hour of hobbling along until reaching a road cutting through the forest.  From there it was plain sailing all downhill back home, but for a while it came pretty close to becoming a dead end!

Running in the snow at last

icy after a 1 1/2 hour barefoot run in the snow

This winter we’ve not even had a proper dusting yet, so today when we woke up to a clean white sheet, I knew it was time to go for good long run.  After dropping the kids off at school, I tucked my huaraches into my pocket and headed out barefoot towards Margitsziget.  The snow burned at first, but after getting some inner heat going everything felt good.  After an hour my toes started to get cold again and tingle (the salt-water slush didn’t help…), but by concentrating on the feeling of blood vessels opening up in my foot, everything regained an equilibrium until returning home.  There’s always something exciting about running in the snow!

Anyone for a barefoot swim?

Last time I was in Oxford I managed to fit in a run, but with half the town flooded and under water, it was more of a barefoot swim than a run…

Down by the Thames, the towpath disappeared into the river on more than one occasion…

After turning back, I came across this a few miles down the road in the other direction:

This one speaks for itself…

Below, Christchurch meadow is transformed into a large lake.  No cows grazing there today!  From left to right, you can see the distant spires of Christchurch Cathedral, University Church and Merton College.  For all you Harry Potter fans, half of the film was shot in Christchurch College.

Christchurch meadow turned into a large lake.

The water was cold, just a few degrees above zero…

When you can’t see what lies under foot, it’s better to put some protection (huaraches) on your feet!

The joy and pain of every step (10 miles) – frost, forest, hills, snow:

The beginning of each winter is always hard on my feet, as they acclimatise to the freezing surfaces beneath.  By the end of the season I’m happy with temperatures as low as minus 10 C (15F), but those first few weeks of December are usually nothing other than pure pain…

So it was today.  A couple of degrees above zero, it was drizzling slightly.  I always find a cold, dry, frozen road surface easier to tread than a slightly warmer, wet one.  Yes, there’s the question of wind-chill on damp feet, the fact that water underneath draws the heat out from your soles, but there’s another factor too.  A long run on a wet surface softens your pads, making them much more sensitive to everything, whether temperature or the type of surface you’re running on.  During this first period of winter, I also find that, below a certain temperature, I need some time to power up my circulation to the point that the blood-flow fully opens up to the extremities, warming them up.  After twenty minutes or so, my feet feel as good as any other time of year, but until then the process is always the same.  First, while my core temperature warms up, my feet grow colder.  That’s par for the course, but if the weather is too cold, they also begin to get overly sensitive as a consequence.  I feel every unevenness in the surface beneath my feet – every twig, every pebble, the texture of anything but the smoothest asphalt – and it all hurts.  Then, if the conditions are extreme enough, they’ll start to go numb for a few minutes until they warm up and everything’s alright again.

Knowing that this was the last day before the first major winter front of the season was due in, dropping temperatures by 10C / 20F for at least a week, I decided to go for my longest barefoot run yet: about a 10 mile circuit over a hilly course with about 300 metres worth (1000 ft.) of incline, first all up, then all down.  I also wanted to reach the forest at the edge of the city – something I’d only ever done in shoes.  As expected, my feet cooled and softened on the damp surface of the road.  I could feel every pebble, every crack in the asphalt – and it all hurt.  A couple of miles in, a cop car pulled alongside and shadowed me for a couple hundred metres.  No word, no greeting, no arrest.  That was fine by me.  Then it pulled over and stopped, no doubt radioing in for reinforcements or making the usual report…  I kept going as a slow, painful buzz began to grip the entire underside of my foot, a kind of recurring electric shock every time my feet touched the ground.  If it weren’t for the determination to run this route – possibly my last chance before spring – the inescapable discomfort of every footstep would have begun to wear me down, and I’d almost certainly have cut short the run and headed for home.  As it was, though, the pain actually served to focus me.  I was going to do this run, and that was that.  So I had to learn how to live with it.  In a way, though, there was nothing to ‘learn’.  It was just a question of staying absolutely, fully, one hundred percent in the present moment.  But neither was this a choice.  It just began to happen by itself.  Determination.  Sensation.  Go.  And keep going.  It’s at this point of pure presence where things just happen – a point so here and now that it totally envelops you, that it carries you forward through time itself, from moment to moment, without time to get side-tracked and react with emotions of like and dislike.  Without time to react by labelling the sensory input from your feet as ‘pain’.

Determination.  Sensation.  Go.  And keep going – because, as it turned out, the wet and cold temperatures combined with the rough surface of today’s road both served to prolong the period of over-sensitivity.  As my core warmed up, my feet also began to receive an increasing flow of warm blood, but, in parallel, the temperature up the hill towards Normafa was steadily dropping.  After half an hour I had reached the house-line which runs around the city, and was running up a deserted forest road.  Every footstep still felt as full of nerve endings as it had done for the whole run.  When I wasn’t actually totally absorbed in the flow of my tempo, it was a fine line between torture and ecstasy.  Because what, really, is the difference between the two?  Both are ultimately just the experience of an over-abundance of energy.  How we interpret them is our decision to make, if only we can stay conscious and present.  Traces of snow from the night before were dusting the road now, and, on either side, sheltered patches in the forest were draped in sheets of white.  I headed off the road and onto a frozen, snowy path which leads up to the summit at Normafa.

Man walking dog.  Man dressed to the hilt in insulation and furs.  Dog barefoot.  With a pained squint in his eye, he comments: ‘kemény…’ (‘tough’) to me as I pass, while his dog happily sniffs here and there, oblivious – or simply more accepting – of the temperature.  The ice is smooth and slightly slippery underfoot, but barefeet grip better than shoes and a midfoot strike also provides more stability.  I love this forest.  I’ve run here for nearly twenty years, but it’s the first time in years that I’ve had the legs to make it back.  Up, up…  In the intervening time, water runoff has deepened the erosion next to the main path, etching a metre-deep wrinkle into the surface of the earth – just as time has begun to do the same with my own face.  Up, up…  I love running on snow.  There’s something exhilarating about it, especially when it’s not too deep and doesn’t slow you down…  I’m convinced it releases endorphins.  You feel weightless and strong, like a wolf in the wild.

Normafa covered in a thin dusting

I reach the top.  To many people, a 350 metre differential isn’t anything to write home about.  It wasn’t for me either, in the old days.  But for me, barefoot, it is an accomplishment.  Only half a year ago, such a run would have reignited the Achilles tendonitis and plantar fasciitis in an instant.  No doubt about it.  As it was, though, I returned home intact, exhilarated by tired, healthy quads from the full-on descent, as well as by the full sensual intensity of every agonising footstep.

For the next few days, I had something to remember that run by, with the soles of my feet continuing to softly buzz, sensitive to the touch, a little sore, stained literally red from so much stimulation!

I love it.  Can’t wait until the next time.

Of lovers, mystics and drunks (6 miles):

Summer solstice:

The last time I rose specifically to watch the summer solstice sun rise was… a long time ago.  This year, I thought it would be a good idea to kill two birds with one stone by combining the sunrise with an early morning run – before the predicted 36 degree Celsius (97 F) heat kicked in for the day.  I stepped out of the house and onto the street, expecting my body to meet a cool sheet of air.  Instead, it was already sticky.  I made the easy five-minute run up to Fisherman’s Bastion, which overlooks the Danube and all of Pest to the East.  With about ten minutes to spare before the 4.46am sunrise, I wasn’t sure who or what to expect up there.  Even if it’s not Stonehenge with a hoard of druids, it still is definitely the best place in all of Budapest for crazy mystics to watch the sun rise.  So I wasn’t really expecting to be alone.  And no, I wasn’t.

Approaching the bastion with its massive columns and stone walls, I heard the sound of laughter.  A couple of late-night revellers were still up there with a bottle of something…  So I found myself a quiet corner on a parapet of the lower level, and surveyed the panorama.  At this early hour, all was still quiet down below, with only a few headlights silently, smoothly snaking their way along the riverside avenues.  The city extended to the horizon, gradually losing definition as the humid air swallowed it in a curtain of smog.  Beyond, a bank of thick cloud stuck stubbornly to the horizon in what was otherwise an almost completely clear, pale blue morning sky.  The packed cumulus formation in the distance looked like a row of armoured soldiers, lined up menacingly, ready for battle.  I scanned right to left, from south to north.  All quiet, except for a chorus of birdsong.  On the far left, standing on the opposite side of the bastion, a pair of lovers stood locked in an enduring embrace, oblivious to the rest of the world.  With just a few minutes to go, a few wispy clouds directly above bore the pink tinges of approaching dawn.  No sign of colour on the dull grey horizon, though, where the sun itself was supposed to rise.  It was looking increasingly like we’d all have to wait for the sun to clear that bank of cloud before we’d feel the first rays of summer on our faces.  4.45am… 4.46am… 4.47am…  No sun.  The lovers were still too entwined in each other to notice that the moment of sunrise had passed.  From the bastion’s upper level, intermittent inebriated laughter continued, completely obliviously.

From this slightly surreal scene, I returned step by step back to reality, running down the main stairs to the road below.  A few minutes later I was at the bottom of Castle Hill, as life was starting up for another day.  The rumble of car engines and distant trams began to fill the background.  Down by the river, no sign of the record floods which had brought the city to a standstill just a few days earlier.   The lower riverside drive was open again; traffic was slowly but surely making a return.  All was as it should be.  My legs were fresh, running smoothly.  Up to Margaret Bridge, over into Pest, and then downriver, past parliament, towards Franz Josef Bridge, and then back onto the Buda side for the last couple of miles back home.  The sun was radiating a golden orange glow over the entire city.  Running alongside the river, its reflection exploded on the waves into a thousand dazzling orbs, as if to compensate for the late arrival.  But I don’t think anyone besides myself had noticed the delay in the first place…