The Tradition Run 2022

 

While the runners participating in today's Tradition run were either still in a warm bed or just making their first bowl of granola, somebody was already in Hubbard Park making the place look pretty. Squint real hard and you can see my parked car.

Visit #1347, Sunday 23 January 22, 6:30-9:10AM, 6.6 miles, 7.6lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low teens, rising to the low 30's today, sunny.

With today's Tradition Run, I wanted the park to look spiffy so I arose early to clean the roads and parking areas in advance of the event. When I arrived it was still too early to see any litter so I sat in my car until it was barely light enough to see. Then I walked all around and did my business.

The start line was dark and empty.

The Grecian Temple looked beautiful in the twilight.

One Find of the Week was this bucket. Just getting rid of this eyesore before people arrived made the early start worthwhile.

Who knew Cinderella ate at Taco Bell? If I knew she wore such ugly shoes, I wouldn't go looking for her, that's for sure!

It took me just under one hour to scour all the roads and parking areas, etc. in Hubbard Park. I dropped off my bag of litter and opened another one for Part II, but didn't expect to find much. I was right.

Now it was on to the Tradition Run route-the road around Merimere Reservoir up to Castle Craig.

It's Week #7 of The Iron Scraps I Left At The Water Treatment Plant Naively Thinking The Meriden Water Department Would Take Them Away. Peruse previous weeks' entries for the history.

Finally, progress!

While the water department employees haven't made the effort to actually remove the iron, employees apparently got tired of moving them out of the way when I would slide them under the gate. They did the minimum necessary and pushed them aside, inside the fence line, and left them there. I'll be interested to see how long they stay there. You put one quarter in, and you get one turn of the wheel...

The sun was just beginning to crack over the ridge of East Peak.

But the real story was the ice.

Part of the Tradition Run's allure is weather conditions be damned; this run IS ON!

Well, the runners were certainly in for an adventure.

There were long stretches of ice around the Merimere Reservoir, as were dry patches. Maybe you could dance around them, but from my observation, it wasn't that easy.

It was when the north facing road turned uphill that things got real ugly. The city had sent a highway truck in advance to sand the road. In my experience, the sand didn't improve traction one bit. Which is not to say I didn't appreciate the effort, but at least without the sand's presence you would not assume traction must be good, and you could at least see you were trodding on an ice covered road.

It would have been worth pitching a lawn chair somewhere along the climb to watch runners do the Curly Shuffle when they ran on the ice!

 

 I wonder how many slips, falls, pulled groin muscles and hamstrings, and swear words there were.

The highway truck was VERY GINGERLY inching down the road after sanding to Castle Craig, and wisely so; the sand wasn't helping him either.

I had already engaged in some traction enhancement.

Along the way up, I found Season of the Missing Glove 2021/22 Entry #3, the Cinnamon Sugar Edition.

Castle Craig was empty when I arrived. I took a minute to enjoy the view south toward Sleeping Giant State Park.

Hiking down from Castle Craig, I happened upon another Find of the Week. I'll wash this hat and take it to Goodwill.

It paid to take the trails back to the park. Enroute I found a small fallen tree across the White Trail, which I removed.

When I finally returned to the parking lot, I found all the runners had finished their granola and arrived to continue the tradition of the Tradition Run.