Steps into silence

It's turning out to be quite a chilly and snowy winter here in the Mid Atlantic states.  This is the third snow storm since around Christmas.  Since my work schedule is lighter...it is after the major shopping holiday after all...I have more time to walk.  So I've been trying to get out and walk around 3 miles each day.

It's been interesting.  You see few people when there is snow on the ground.  And how cheery most of them are!  It's almost like a small secret society of snow lovers.  We hide, out in the open, in the fresh crisp air, where the moaners and whiners won't see or hear us.

I've come to realize this week, that an answer I gave to a question on a friends blog, about which you prefer more, solo walking or with a companion, may not have been accurate! It's been a while since I've really done a fair bit of solo walking or hiking.  Just sort of happened.  Just as these solo walks have just happened.  I really find I'm loving the silence.

Now most of these walks of late have been here in town, so perhaps silence isn't quite the right word.  There is the sound of traffic (sometimes!).  Tree's creak in the wind.  Ice makes wet drippy sounds.

 Or snow can be crisp and squeaky.

Sometimes it muffles every other sound as it slowly covers everything.  Shovels scrapping and being honed on sidewalks and driveways.  The hum and whoosh of snow blowers.  Very few human voices though.  No music.  No conversation.  Just the smiles from fellow snow lovers passing by...sometimes only the eyes, as the face is covered high with a scarf, but they communicate so much.

I guess the solo walking and training is rather like my running (such as it ever was!)  I prefer not to have an external sound track going.  Most of the runners I know, my own son included, prefer to be plugged in and powered up before they set foot outside the house.  They've got chips in their shoes, GPS's on their watches, and music in their iPods.  When these things malfunction, it's actually quite amusing to watch them melt down.   It's as though they need the validation from the outside sources that they've really done the run.

Not that I haven't done a run with music, because I'd be lying if I said otherwise.  But as much as it can be an aid on occasion, I find most of the time it interrupts my train of thought...it gets between me and the tarmac.  My all time favorite run was done at night out in the country side and was pretty long, around 15 miles.  No music, no watch..just a head lamp so see the road.  Only the road directly in front of my feet.  I couldn't tell how much father to the next stop sign and turn.  I had no idea how far I'd gone or had yet to go.  It was just me, the night air and the road.  Totally present, totally now.  A little bubble of light and road, moving forward.  I loved every wheezing moment of it.  I even remember the jubilation of arriving at the end, and actually considering running on past...just keeping on keeping on. That would have really freaked out my fellow runners training for the marathon...who did things exactly by the book!

And so it seems to go with walking.  I'm enjoying just placing one foot in front of the other, over and over and over again.  Hmmm I think it may be time to put my boots back on this morning.