By Esther C. Baird
First Published in the Tri Town Transcript. Feb 5, 2018
I’m jogging through Silver Creek, New York. It’s a hot sunny day. The kind of hot where the grass is starting to bake out a little bit and you can smell the pavement expanding and shimmering. It’s an August kind of hot day. There are no clouds, so my view of the vast farm regions around me is pretty great. Even the rusted out grain silos on my left seem scenic today. I’m close enough to Niagara Falls that I could have run past it yesterday for a souvenir, but I didn’t. There’s no time for souvenirs, I’ve got miles to log and places to go.
“Mommy!! The school bell is ringing, I have to go to my locker and you said you’d carry my snow gear bag!”
I put my phone into the pocket of my down puffer jacket, and smile at my daughter.
“Yep. You carry your backpack and I’ll carry your five pounds of snow gear so that you can safely, and by safely I mean legally, play on the playground today!”
What? Oh, that’s a weird juxtaposition isn’t it? But both are true. I’m here, slogging through salt crusted sidewalks, and walking dogs through sandy snow banks that make our house look like a silica bomb exploded, but I’m also in western New York… in the summer.
It’s part of the My Virtual Mission group I joined this year. Regular Readers know that I’m a fitness fanatic, or, perhaps for the purposes of this column, you know about the injuries I get from said fanaticism. But like everything else that’s habitual, it gets dull. So I try out the latest gadgets — I’ve done the step trackers and Bluetooth trainers who tell jokes and the full range of heart rate monitors that, regardless of brand, declare I’ve burned four whole calories after a major workout. What do they know anyway.
This latest app has been different because it accomplishes what none of the others can do. It removes me from winter, and my cold basement, and the gross roads, and puts me in summer. Using Google maps, it shows me where I am using street view and, I’m here to tell you, it’s way nicer weather on my virtual run!
I’m on a team that’s making our way from Boston to Denver. We’re taking Route 90. And we are getting there in all sorts of crazy ways. Mostly I just do my normal workouts in the cold, dark basement at the crack of dawn. Of course I also walk Blue and Moose an infinite number of times each week, which may be mathematically impossible, except it’s true.
Beyond that, I can convert lots of other activities to miles on the journey. Weight lifting? No problem. Interval training? Great. Burpee challenge? Well, you’re crazy, but ok. Chopping firewood, light housework (it’s unclear how to factor in heavy loads of laundry), playing pool and, most importantly, shoveling snow all count.
The conversion chart says for every 30 minutes of shoveling I can clock 2.2 miles. They don’t have a roof-rake conversion… I guess it’s nice to know that some people out there in our great big country don’t know what a roof rake is.
Today our team entered Cleveland. I’ve actually never been there in person, but at least on today’s run, it’s lovely. Right now we are going along Lake Erie and I can see the masts of boats in a marina to my right. Just south of me is the actual house from the movie “A Christmas Story.” I mean what a fun run!!
Sure, the Mommy Taxi is firing on all cylinders later today. Yes, I’ll be camped out in dark parking lots across the North Shore dropping off, picking up, handing out snacks like a human vending machine, and praying for manna to drop from heaven into my kitchen since that’s our best shot at dinner. But I may also swing by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since I’ll only be a few blocks south of it later on…
Ah, February. The days grow longer and brighter here in Boxford at a comatose snail’s pace. But the days are already long and bright along my running route. You may see me shoveling if the forecast for next week holds true, but just know, I’m also running towards Indiana and those wild, open corn fields where it’s always hot, always summer.