OrthoSouth

like running over a giant field of Styrofoam packing had any better idea of where the trail should actually be. peanuts. It was different than the slushing noise warmer A few of these blissful days saw more snowfall snow makes. The squeak mixed with a satisfying between my runs. The newly laid snow would bury my crunch as the snow was compacted. The tracks Mia and old tracks and allow me the pleasure of reestablishing I left were the only signs of outdoor life. Every other my virgin trail. I would intentionally make it different living thing sought shelter. The running was hard I had faced than before, and sure enough others who came later still mostly followed and slow as I literally had to high-step every time I moved my own ghosts in my footsteps, literally. I guess it was the path of least resistance for them. forward so my feet would clear the deep snow holes my in the ice ... There was endless potential for every cliché allegory I know. Don’t worry, weight created. It’s inefficient I’ll spare you. and tiring but all my exertions definitely gave me a All good things eventually come to an end. The solid workout despite my slower speed. moisture eventually passed on, but in its wake the

Mia, on the other hand, showed that she is a natural- tropical warm front had driven the powerful vortex all born snow dog. She bounded effortlessly over the the way back into the arctic, which is where it belongs frozen landscape and loved for me to throw snowballs after all. at her. The snowballs were soft and fluffy rather than The sun shown brightly, and for one brief day it was the hard, icy kind found in warmer snow. Mia would snowy and relatively warm at the same time. The trails snap at them and they would dissolve into a spray of that had been mostly my own were now packed with ice that scattered all over her. She would then leap into those who had spent days cooped up in their homes. the air in a self-satisfied celebration after each snowball Snowmen were born next to snow angels. Children was vanquished by her powerful maw. She never tired chased each other across still icy streets and old men of the game and would look at me periodically to see if introduced the young to the joys of sledding. it was time for another snowball fight. It was fun to see life return to the outdoors and

When we were on a trail, I let her run a while the joy on peoples faces. It’s hard to be anything but off leash since there was almost no one else around. cheerful on such a glorious day, and many people She would plow into deep banks of snow whenever warmly greeted Mia and me as we slogged through possible with a satisfying crunch. She reminded me of the snowy remnants. It felt a lot like Christmas a small child with her boundless enthusiasm. I often morning, the day Ebenezer Scrooge was reborn after a laughed so hard at her antics that I had to stop running night spent with the dead. I had faced my own ghosts just to catch my breath between chuckles. in the ice, the cold and the snow all in their own turn,

My favorite thing to do was to run through the so it felt like a new day. The sunshine filled the world virgin snowpack and look back at our lonely tracks with the potential of better days to come. Spring trodding over my best guess of the position of the would arrive shortly and everything around me had underlying trail. Sometimes I was way off, as I would been washed clean by the trials of winter’s strongest learn days later when the snow finally receded. At the days. time, however, mine became the trail that would be And so had I. followed by everyone who came after, since no one else For the first time in a long time, I felt warm inside.

Serious snowfall

The snowfall Rob Rayder wrote about occurred on Feb.18 this year. The Memphis International Airport reported 7.2 inches of snow that day, but the total was quickly revised down to 5.17 inches.

The record snowfall in Memphis – 18 inches – happened on March 17, 1892, no doubt interrupting many a St. Patrick’s Day celebration. 18 inches is a lot of snow, of course, but it doesn’t come close to the U.S. record, which occurred at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in California from Feb. 13 to 19 in 1959. At 15.75 feet, the snowfall there was a record from a single storm system. Mount Shasta is a volcano in the Cascade Mountain Range and rises as high as 14,160 feet.

Besides the 1892 snow dump on Memphis, the city has experienced some other significant snowfall totals, notably 17.3 inches from heavy snow March 21 and 23 and 14.3 on Dec. 22, 1968.

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of running marathons on back-to-back days came up. He told me he was running a double himself within a few days. I asked how he planned to get that done. He said, “Just start the second one slow and you will feel okay in a few minutes.” It turned out he was right. I did as he suggested and the two days went better than I had expected them to.

Near the end of my Maui race (state 50), I caught up with an older man and we started talking. He was doing state No. 50 himself. I asked where was from and he told me Seattle. I asked how he got from Seattle to Hawaii and he told me he had come on a “destination cruise.” – He would not be going back to Seattle on the ship he came in on.

“How are you going to get home?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and responded, “I don’t know.” I wished him well and we kept on running.

I like to talk to other runners while we’re going because doing so sometimes gives me ideas for Roadrunner articles – by or about the person I’m talking to. One of my best scores occurred as I ran the Chicamauga Battlefield Marathon near Chattanooga in the fall of 2017. I was running a slow race and at one point found myself next to Amanda Lawrence, who lives in a small town in Georgia. We started talking and I told her about MRTC, Share your St. Jude Children’s experiences.Research Hospital and all the great things St. Jude does.

Amanda and I got separated and I did not see her again, but about a week after I got back home, Amanda emailed to say she was so inspired by what I told her about St. Jude that she signed up to run as a St. Jude Hero. I wrote back immediately to ask her to write about her experience for the Roadrunner. She did so, and I was thrilled to receive her article about running for St. Jude children – one of the best articles ever published in the Roadrunner.

I plan to rerun Amanda’s article in The November issue of the Roadrunner, which typically features the St. Jude Memphis Marathon Weekend.

Final note: This publication is by and for MRTC members. If you have an experience you feel would interest other members, get in touch with me at brentmanley@yahoo.com

Comments are welcome. ❑