Beep. Beep. Beep.

Hey! Guess what? It was snowing today. I think that makes for three out of five runs in the snow. I just love running in the snow. The feel of the cold wet splats in your face (today's brand of snowflakes were about two inches in diameter), your thighs getting colder and colder (luckily my polyester jogging pants seem to repel the water), and most especially that exciting feeling of "Am I going to slip and fall on my face as I "run" down this hill?" Just think - someone could watch me run, yank my underwear out of my butt, and then fall on said butt. How much more entertaining could I be? Why oh why did I not wait until real spring arrived? Oh. Wait. That's because here in Nova Scotia that could be July - and even then, I'll just be running in the rain instead of the snow. Obviously my extreme love of this place has to do with things other than the weather.

I added another, more subtle level to the entertainment level of my runs today - my watch. Like I said before, I have never owned a digital watch. This thing has five buttons, measures time in hundreths of a second, keeps track of the date, the day of the week, the time, when I want to wake up, and what I am having for supper. My plan is to use it to tell me when my one minute of running is up, and then when to start running again. I decided I would use the timer feature, and reset it every time I switched between walking and running. Simple? You'd think. You'd also think I would try it out before I left the house. Not so. Instead, I was trying to walk/"run" while figuring it out - somewhat akin to rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. It can be done - but it requires a silly amount of concentration. Ideally, the timer should run for one minute, and then - beep - stop, beep - reset, beep - restart, and repeat. Not so! It was more like one minute, then beep - what did that do? Oh, okay, maybe that button. Beep - okay it stopped. Beep - why is it running again?! Beep - okay got it stopped. Beep - hey, that didn't reset, it's telling me that I am having chicken for supper. Beep - okay, reset. Beep - whew, get running would ya? It was not good.

However, it was absorbing, and my time on the streets seemed to pass quickly. As a matter of fact, it was so quick, I think I might have only run five times, not six. I don't see how this could be, since I went the exact same distance I always do... perhaps I have increased in speediness so much that I covered the distance so much more quickly? Perhaps since my warm up walk was so exactly five minutes (not 5.01 minutes), I warmed up for longer than I have been? Or perhaps, just perhaps, I spent too long beeping my beeping watch? I'll never know, I guess.

And, one more thing - note to self: pink bikinis no good either.