After Saturday morning’s loud clackity-clack-clack of a lumber on the still icy trails, and the remaining weekend filled with slack, sloth, and existential outdoor fitness ennui, on Monday, I found myself hurling Escape II down the road towards the trails and another lumber.

Saturday afternoon, we got around 2″ of wet snow, and it turns out it was just enough to cover the ice and allow for more grip, less ass cleching, and way less ice-crunching noise. Yes!

That was some much-needed inspiration, as was allowing myself to go outside of my comfort zone for the first time in weeks. It turns out that resting and being “nice” to myself over the holidays, as well as avoiding the icy trails because “they’re just not fun to hike on,” was stupid. Sadly, roughly 75% of my motivation to get outside and push myself is from years of self-loathing, fat-shaming, and long ingrained body dysmorphia. The same reasons one might choose to do a 24-hour solo mountain bike race, or other form of outdoor endurance self-flagellation.

So, I made sure to get some naked mirror time in on Sunday to assess the state of my 54-year-old body. The appraisal did not go well, and once the audible disgust wore off, I was able to dig deep and let the ridicule and shame fly. I’m so fucking good at it, you’d think I would be skinny (again) by now.

It was just what I needed, and there was no way I wasn’t pushing myself to do my full “normal” 6+ mile loop today. Anytime I got cold, hungry, or longed for my warm bed, I remembered the heap of flesh with a cocktail wiener peaking out that I saw in the mirror. Job done, 6.34 miles in to start the week. Nice job, fatty.

I’m not sure the OG Mindbender would approve of my motivational methods, but sometimes you do what you gotta do.

Lastly, I somehow forgot that I did run into another lumberist on Saturday, a friendly trail runner that I’ve seen several times over the years. He always has something to say, and I only ever hear about 1% it.

On Saturday, as I readied myself in the lot, he ran by, layered and spiked up, and yelled something that sounded like, “MY SON-IN-LAW WORKS FOR THE SANITATION DEPARTMENT! THEY PUT THE SUN IN A MEAT LOCKER! HA! HA! HA! HA!” To which I replied, “Ha! Have a good one!”

Later.

Note: I only got a couple shots today, so I included a recent shot of a female Downy Woodpecker visiting the Cul-De-Sac-Shack over the weekend.