Frozen stride.

I've been doing my easy runs leading up to my marathon on Sunday. Except that these runs have been nothing short of frustrating. Frustrating (capital F). There's hard ice, black ice, slippery ice, frozen snowy ice, and some actual ground here and there. I can't get anything going on when I'm out trying to run. I think the noticeable lack of other runners is telling me something - these conditions suck, don't bother. But I have to.

I keep feeling myself annoyed at some unknown responsible party for apparantly doing nothing about the paths. No salt, for instance. I can only assume they go around checking, and do it during the day when what I encounter as slick black ice is only seen as snow meltoff. I guess it never occurs to anyone that this "water" stuff freezes at some point. It's so bad out there that I could only really open up my stride and get some freedom in movement for about a 1/4 mile on the "back stretch" (approaching Fullerton from the north, on the lakeshore path).

Oh well. My next easy run will be in sunny Southern California! I just hope the weather here is a %1000 better when I get back.