Apologies To Those of You Still in Winter

I actually got a little flushed today while running in shorts and a t-shirt. Yeah, the climate change deniers might be having a field day with the Snowpocalypse in the NE, but here in the not-so-chilly PacNW, it's been spring since early February. My forsythia was blooming before Valentine's day, and now all the fruit trees are in full bloom and there's an unmistakeable warmth in the air.

Today when I was running, I was thinking about how when you get outside all year long, you really feel the seasons. Not just in an "OMG, it's so freezing as I dash to my car across this parking lot" kind of way, but in a whole body way. You know the difference between a snappy cold and a wet damp kind of cold, between a slightly warm evening and the kind where the heat coming off of the asphalt is still baking your feet an hour after the sun goes down. You really LIVE in the weather. Today it was warm enough that I could smell the weeds growing by the edge of the river, that particularly watery marshy smell that the weeds don't have anywhere else in town. I think if you picked me up blindfolded and dropped me somewhere in town, I could probably locate myself by the smell alone. All of your senses come alive when you run outside year round, during the mornings, the mid-day, the late evenings, sometimes at night. This is one gift that running has brought into my life.