a ground hog i became

Yesterday, I ran the annual groundhog run. It takes place in one of those caves that house offices and storage space and sewage smells and stuffy air. It was a 10K, which is 6.4 miles for my non-running readers, and it was boring. Really boring. Like running for 52 minutes in a parking garage with no scenery, no fresh air and really, really bad body odor smells. Because putting 3,500 people in a cave in the morning, pre-shower, and then having them all run and run and run causes sweat and body odor, and I'm pretty sure people forgot to wear deodorant and to brush their teeth. During outdoor races, the fresh air takes care of most of the nastiness that accompanies long runs, but not in the caves. It was gross.

And the irony in all of this is that usually, when the Subtropolis cave people open its doors to thousands of runners in the middle of the winter, the chance to run like a groundhog is greeted with thanks because the 50ish degree temperatures the caves offer are supposed to be far better than the Kansas City mid-winter bone chilling colds. Only yesterday, the temperature outside pretty much matched the cave temperature and while I usually wait for Groundhog Day with much anticipation, hoping that spring is right around the corner, this year, we’ve hardly had winter. My daylilies are coming up and so are my daffodils and I have buds on my trees. It’s been spring-like since November and it’s a little scary if you ask me. I’m not sure why, but it’s scary nonetheless.

My friend Brad and I ran together until he beat me by 20 seconds in the end and as we emerged from the stinky cavern and the bright Sunday morning sun was just ahead of us, I turned to him and said, “I feel like a ground hog, but I bet I’ll see my shadow.”

I did see my shadow. Guess we’ll have six more weeks of “wintery weather.” Make sure your spring jackets and windbreakers are ready if you need them Kansas City!