Scarlet Runner by crooxi

The end of another year - how did that happen?! Soon we can start looking forward to spring.............. Well, maybe not QUITE yet. But ideas, if not yet plans, are beginning to stir in the silted-up recesses at the back of my mind, and may possibly include some moderately ambitious summer project involving my new trail shoes............. I love contemplating possibilities! I particularly love contemplating NEW possibilities: places I've never been before; races I've never done before. Life is too short for endless repeats, as a recent small incident reminded me. We visited J's mother in the care home a couple of days ago, and pinned on the corridor wall among the Christmas decorations, calendar snow scenes, and funny animal pictures, etc., was one with an almost tragically appropriate message: something about 'if there is something you dream of doing, don't wait too long - do it before it's too late.' Probably it was put up because it also had a picture of a dog on it. I don't suppose any of the dementia patients there really look at the pictures, let alone read them, but it did seem a touch macabre. A message for me, rather than for the inhabitants, for whom it most certainly was already too late. It felt like a bit of a wake-up call for me, the chronic procrastinator. So that's when the ideas started to emerge from hibernation. They're not grandiose, brave, extravagant projects, just things - some of them very small - I like the idea of. I remember an article in the paper once, about a woman whose New Year Resolution was to do 50 (or was it 100?) things she'd never done before, ranging from simple ones like 'have a manicure' to more large-scale ones like (I think) 'climb Kilimanjaro'. While neither of those are on my personal list, I like the idea, and have already come up with a few possibilities of my own. (Alas, 'attend the Olympic Games' cannot be one of them!) And yes, some of them involve the putting of one foot in front of the other.................

Which I have also been doing over the past couple of weeks, unspectacularly but quite pleasantly. Tuesday 20 December: time to test the knee after its 8 day rest. With Monday's black ice rendered less deadly by gritted pavements and a layer of fresh snow, I felt a little more confident, but decided the woods might be the better bet. So off we went along Waldrand, up to the ponds, and to the middle of the woods. So far so good; so on up to Oberrüti, and a round of the fig. of 8. The snow was only thin, maybe 3 or 4 centimetres, but so lovely and new and creaky, it wasn't slippery at all, especially with trail shoes. We weren't quite the first to leave our footprints, but still had that feeling of having the woods all to ourselves. It was so quiet - just the occasional patter of snow falling from the trees as the wind blew through them. Back down to the middle of the woods, and home down the zigzags. 6.25 km in 51:11. I would have liked to do more, but couldn't spare the time. No problems with the knee; though I was constantly aware of it, it felt more stiff and creaky than painful. I think this is probably something I'm just going to have to live with now, and if it's no worse than this, that's okay.

Work and Christmas then intervened, and it was Christmas Day before I got out again. Wednesday and Thursday had brought heavy rain, so the snow was all gone, turning first to gritty slush, then vanishing altogether as the temperature rose to an un-wintery 7°. Saturday was pretty nondescript, but Sunday turned out improbably nice, with blue sky and sunshine - just the thing for some post-pig-out exercise (and pre-pig-out too, as we were due back at G's for another session of gluttony in the afternoon.) So we ambled gently down to the lake, along past the Wagner Museum, down to Alpenquai, and round the Ufschötti: a pair of Christmas snails out enjoying a breath of premature spring. (We and many others.) Garmin ran out at 3 km, but it would have been about 5 1/2 km, and took 42 minutes.

Boxing Day was also fine and sunny! - so off for a long(ish) one in the afternoon. The plan was to stay in the sun as long as possible, so that dictated the route, which took us round the Horw peninsula. Up over Stutz, down to Langensand and St Niklausen; turn right by the tower, over to Buholz, then left down the road to Kastanienbaum; and along the lakeside road to Winkel. Also fairly snail-like until the latter stretch, where I decided to speed up a bit, and managed a 6:08 km. Standard procedure here would have been to return along the canal to Horw, then either the woods or Sternegg back to Hirtenhof, but as this was already in shadow, we decided to try something new, and headed up a very steep hill towards the top of the peninsula. Ignoring a perfectly good signpost stating 'Wanderwg' (footpath), J. decided he knew better, and led us up another very steep road........... which finished up at a dead end. A fence, a deep valley with a stream at the bottom, no doubt another fence at the other side, and no sign of a path, though we could see the track where we wanted to be on the opposite hillside. I could hear the spectral words 'Short cut............' forming, (and we know where they tend to lead!), so I hurriedly turned round and headed back the way we had come. J. was very reluctant to believe there was NOT a way through, and kept going up flights of steps to people's houses, in the expectation that there would miraculously be a path on the other side. There never was. After a few minutes of this pointless exercise, now getting a bit cold and p****d off, I announced, "I'm leaving you!" and headed back down the hill. A surreptitious glance back showed that he was not following - in fact, he was heading off along yet another flight of steps into someone's garden. "Bloody idiot!" I fumed aloud........... then noticed there was a man standing next to a car in a driveway giving me a very quizzical stare! I waited another minute at the bottom of the road, then thought 'Okay, so be it,' and set off following the signposted route. After approximately 50 metres, it turned left up the hill............ and voilà, there I was on the track we wanted to be on. I wondered if J. was still floundering about in the trackless wilderness below, so I whistled (we have a special signal for locating each other eg. in supermarket aisles), and back came an answering whistle. I couldn't tell where it came from, so we continued the exchange until we located each other. True to form, he had trespassed through someone's garden, climbed over a fence, and made his own way up the hillside, sans path. ("Never do things the easy way if there's a complicated way.") Reunited, we continued up the track until it reached the top by the Berg Sion chapel, at the near end of the peninsula (spotting en route a couple of other paths that require exploring some time - a nice find); then the usual way home, down the Stations of the Cross, along the ridge above Horw, across the road, and up into the woods. By now the sun had gone down behind the mountains, and it was much, much colder. In the Bireggwald, the ground was hard and crispy, the fallen leaves grey with frost. Even keeping moving, I started to feel cold, plodding my way up the main track to the middle of the woods. Once it flattened out at the top, we could speed up a bit, and hurried home the shortest way, down the zigzags. 14.03 km, in 1:45:08. Apart from the few minutes' silliness in the middle, an enjoyable run. Pity I then had to go out to work!

Friday 30 December: final run of the year. A soggy little outing in the Bireggwald, squeezed in between grocery shopping and another invitation in the afternoon. Weather once again dull, damp, and foggy. Hirtenhof, Waldrand, a round of the Vita Parcours with selected exercises (3 effortful pull-ups; triceps dips; push-ups.........) and 3 rounds of the Finnebahn - the wood-chippings track - thrown in; then home via ponds, Waldrand, and trough. 6.12 km, in 48:52.

And thus ends 2011. 2012 has already got off to a good start............ but that will have to wait till next time.

Happy New Year!