Friday, February 10, 2017

ESCAPE FROM THE ALBANY SNOW EMERGENCY!
5.4 Mile Run on the Mohawk Hudson Bike Path & Lock 7 Rd
Friday, February 10, 2017

It's pretty sad that the general lack of snow over the past couple of winters has brought us to the point where 10-12" is considered a major storm... but there you go. I can't really disagree with Albany's declaration of a snow emergency, just because they need to get the roads as clear as possible - but parking during these things is a nightmare, and prompted me to make plans to stay in Lake George tonight rather than drive the whole way to Pottersville tomorrow morning. With luck I'll get back late enough tomorrow to have missed the worst of the parking chaos.

It's been a tough week running-wise, so on my way out of town I headed over to the Niskayuna Lions Park for a run on one of the plowed sections of the bike path. Got there around 7 PM and found everything very still and peaceful. While I was running I did have one other runner put in a brief appearance, and there were people at Lock 7, but mostly it was just me and memories of numerous other winter runs on that stretch of path (especially back in 2006 when I was trying to get ready for the Eastern States 20mi road race in late March, and ran back and forth seemingly endless times on more evenings than I can count.)

Really, though, the most important thing was how god it felt to be running again.

When I reached the hotel in Lake George, the receptionist asked me why I was staying over, and when I mentioned the snowshoe race and being a refugee from the snow emergency, she said the latter was one of the top news stories because of all the tickets and cars towed. (Not enough, in my opinion - there's a mess of snow in front of my house because some idiot left his car there and instead of towing it the City just plowed around it.)

JMH