Fresh tracks

Sun rise through the clouds, ducks waking up :) 

I belong to the group of people that require movement to have balance in my life. For me, that comes either through running or swimming. This cold Saturday morning in Boulder was no different. 

There was fresh snow on the ground and had planned to meet a running buddy at 7 am. She cancelled but I was already dressed to run, so I just set out - just myself. 

Start of my run - right outside my house.

I love to run alone especially when I run long - the simplicity of putting one foot in front of the other makes everything else in my life seem so trivial. I do not listen to music when I run, but let my mind wander and let my breathing set my pace for the run. I used to run with fancy gadgets that would beep every time my heart rate was higher than a certain number, or when I was running at a slower pace than what was planned. For the last three years that has changed. My runs are dictated by other conditions such as - how much time do I have before a kid wakes up from his nap, or how many bugs do I need to fix (when I run at work) after lunch. The fact that I am running is a celebration to me, and reminds me how lucky I am to be able to run. 

As I ran this morning, I began to notice footprints in the snow covered sidewalks/roads.  For some reason they seemed to attract my attention. Some people were out walking their dogs, some out for a brisk walk, or some other that were running just like me. 

Looks like some dog was out walking all alone :)

I thought of our skiing days when Karthik and I would be at the mountain early and there were runs where we would be first to cut through the snow and leave our trail for other skiers - they were fresh tracks. As I ran through the trails, and side walks, I wanted to find such fresh tracks to run on - they would just have my foot prints :) I continued running until I turned around a corner and it was one of my favorite neighborhood that I found a place to leave some fresh tracks. This just made my day - I was like a 3 year old who just learned to use a die on putty. Not sure why this was so special to me during this run, but my entire day was close to perfect.