Running in the Frost

I love the way early morning frost causes the electric trolley busses to kick up insane amounts of sparks from the overhead wires. I have no idea what the science behind it is and, honestly, I don't really care. It's just cool have the busses zooming by, snapping and crackling, with big balls of orange and blue sparks spitting out behind them.

What makes it even cooler is that you have to be up very early to catch it. Once the busses have been running for a while the frost disappears and the busses become ordinary, losing that touch of the magical.

This morning was one of those frosty days. I was out of the house at 5:55 a.m. and feeling the urge to give in to martyrdom (Alison, patron saint of whinging runners!) because it was cold and slippery and early and running was not nearly as nice as being in bed. I was running down a mostly deserted Oak Street and suddenly had busses passing me from the South and from the North, all of them hissing and spitting and sparking furiously, adding brights spalshes of colour to the early morning pallete of grey and brown. As no one else was around it felt like a pyrotechnics display put on purely for my benefit, my reward for being up early.

A silly little thing but it made my morning.

For those who care about these things, it was 50min run, AHR 152, MHR 167.