Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018.

Most people “ring in” the New Year. I, conversely, “run in” the New Year.

For many years now I have participated in a New Years Eve run at a few different venues. Living here in NE Ohio, that event is subject to a variety of weather extremes causing others outside the running community (and some within) to questions the wisdom of the venture. Of course, the word “wisdom” in this context could be better replaced with the word “insanity”. While perhaps not as extreme as the Polar Bear Plunge that some hardy (and perhaps over imbibed) folks engage in, it is usually not for the faint of heart (perhaps for the faint of head?).

This year was particularly extreme in that the temperature was in the mid-teens with the wind chill in the low single digits. The good news is, the sun was shining! (Hey, us runners will use anything to put a positive spin on a run). For the young, fast, well-conditioned athletes it was a 15 -20 minute 5K dash through the neighborhood. For the rest of us, not so much, maybe 30 -40 minutes with nothing to look forward to except a cold beer afterwards (we do need to rehydrate you know).

So we say goodbye to 2017 with a few goals missed (didn’t set a PR) and a few goals achieved (placed first in age group) and look forward to 2018 and setting new goals to achieve.