JJ: The Opposite of Snowbirds

Today marks the sixth day in a row that I’ve run, and my body felt it.  This week and next week will be intense (for me) as I ramp up a bit for the Brooklyn Half on May 3rd.  But, today when I left my office building my second thought was: tomorrow, you rest. (My first thought was, I should have been home by now to feed & walk poor Matilda.) I ran towards my day off, and I think it made me faster. 3.5 miles in 30:24 (8:41 pace).  Or maybe it was the fact that I caught hardly any lights.

But once I was on the bridge, almost immediately I decided to dedicate my run to my Auntie.  She lives in Florida year round with Uncle, and every winter I hear from her about how there’s suddenly a waiting list at the library for the bestsellers, she has to park miles away from grocery store entrance, get to church earlier than usual to snag her normal pew, and make reservations and restaurants. Because of the Snowbirds, of course.  Sometime around 5:45 PM I knew first hand what she was talking about.  Because the pedestrian and cyclist lane of the Queensborough Bridge — my bridge, the bridge I ran over all winter long, through wind and rain and freezing temperatures, through the dark and the gloom — was jam-packed with recreationists.  I don’t know what else to call them.  They were like a hapless invading militia, kitted out with mismatched, secondhand bikes or outfitted in shiny new running gear, coming through in the wrong lane, veering everywhere.  I wanted to stomp indignantly and say, Where you when I was I was running with a little pile of sleet on my head?? But really: when the world lays one on ya like it did today, who can blame you for striding or pedalling out into it? The sun was too warm, the breeze to sweet for me to hold a grudge for long.