As everyone’s favorite Romantic poet and middle-of-the-pack road racer once posted, autumn is “the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and more pleasant training on the hilly byways of northern Westchester.”
The illusion of a reprieve from global warming is upon us. It’s why fall is the perfect time to reinvigorate your running game. You’ll find that you are not hating yourself and the rest of humanity before, during and after every workout. You might even start enjoying the proceedings enough to relish the bursts of fall color starting to tinge some treetops.
A word of caution, though. Even the conservative pundits over at the Old Farmer Fox’s Almanac are predicting blue to be the predominant color this autumn. Inevitably, this will lead to a monthslong slog through terrible blizzards of complaints from red snowflakes across the region.
For your own safety on our rustic roads as you power through the slush, you may want to invest in the new trend of hybrid gravel shoes, such as the Asics Blazeblast or the Hoka Challenger 8, designed for mixed road and light off-road surfaces.
Then again, you might feel safer with the more robust grip and support offered by purpose-built trail shoes such as the New Balance Hierro or the Saucony Peregrine 16. These will serve you better, for example, on the rocky, rooty slopes of the Raven Rocks 10K Trail Run at Wards Pond Reservation in Cross River, which is back for its 11th year on Nov. 8. ravenrocksrun.org
In the fall, my outings become busier with added responsibilities as I embrace the self-appointed role of local Road Keeper. My poor squirrel and chipmunk neighbors are going nutty in their frantic search for acorns and other provisions to store away for winter against the threat of ever-rising inflation. Any road safety sense they had during the summer goes right out their heads as they dart back and forth willy-nilly across roads, or sit in the path of oncoming traffic pondering their shopping list.
These are the weeks where there are far too many critters flattened on the roads. As a show of respect, I always try to edge those little corpses that are still whole enough off into the weeds, such as the poor little guy I found today, struck down minutes earlier by a speeding commuter.
Warning. As we approach Election Day, runners and drivers alike will encounter endless advertisements about rabid communists and hordes of socialists waiting in ambush behind every other tree or bush. Ignore these empty threats. The rustling you hear is our furry friends, worrying about how to make ends meet and feed their families during these difficult times, not paying a lick of attention to the three thousand pounds of metal and rubber speeding toward them at 42 miles per hour.
Watch yourself out there, too. The days are ending earlier. Night is getting longer. In a Noxgear rechargeable Tracer2 LED light vest, you can announce your newfound visibility in a variety of colors. Yellow. Green.
And also a loud, unmisty, unmellow blue.
Contact the.runaround1@gmail.com with your stories and ideas to help promote the local running scene.
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