Where I run, I gauge my distance by counting mile sections of wheat fields and I plan my routes from one small town to the next. I run where the scenery is dotted with fields, farms, church steeples and river bridges. I run on flat country roads lined with wildflowers in the spring (although my dad would call them weeds) and ditches filled with snow drifts in the winter. Runs can be so serene that my iPod only interrupts the meadowlarks, the singing of the cicadas and the lulling swish of wind through the wheat… Then reality hits. There are those runs when I can barely hear my iPod over the gale force North wind or those when my toes and fingers are numb before I reach the end of my block. I won’t even mention the hundred degree summer runs that quite literally melt me as the heat radiates down from the sun and up from the road. Peaceful and serene or wickedly windy, I love being a “rural runner.” Despite, or perhaps because of the changes of the seasons (and the whims of the weather), I truly love where I run.
I’m always debating where to run… an old favorite route, out past the little white church or someplace new. With seemingly endless miles of country roads, running for me is always an adventure on the prairie.
I’m always debating where to run… an old favorite route, out past the little white church or someplace new. With seemingly endless miles of country roads, running for me is always an adventure on the prairie.
