My neighbor and I are resuming our regular walking schedule now that the roads are not ice and snow covered and the temperatures are a bit milder. It is later than usual this year with the extended winter and we are not as hardy as we were in our younger years. O-dark hundred is not as dark with the summer equinox approaching. I am now returning home as dawn is approaching.
I realized that my inky dark days on the road are over. When we started our walking journey all those years ago, there was only one house and a swamp between my home and hers. The trek to her house was sometimes very black on moonless, cloud covered mornings. As the years have passed three homes have been built on that stretch. One of these new homes has a security light on the garage which is on all night long. Sadly, it's light pollution dampens star and planet gazing, but a full moon can have the same effect! But it does provide light along the path to meet in the pre-dawn darkness.
We have walked in all kinds of weather. Our goal is to walk April through Thanksgiving. Some years were mild and we could walk as early as March and as late as December, other years have been colder and snowier ending our walking before November or delaying our start in the Spring. Sometimes illness or injury interrupts our walking. But we strive to exercise to keep our hearts healthy and the pounds off.
The challenge is identifying the weather at 0-dark hundred. To make that quiet phone call to cancel due to rain or lightning has been spotted. Other times it is rather obvious when thunder rattles the windows and lightning turns the night into day. There have been days when I walked out the door into rain to turn around to make that phone call and crawl back into bed.
We laughed one year as we each gave the other rain suits and ponchos as birthday gifts. Rain is usually our biggest weather challenge. We have walked in lots of rain: misty, drippy, downpours, scattered drops, intermittent, stormy. Neither of us are fond of lightning and try to avoid being out in it but sometimes it sneaks up on us. I am not fond of thunder either, makes me jumpy. Where's there thunder I figure lightning is nearby too.
We have monitored the skies, watching storms in the distance. We try to determine the direction they are moving and gauge if we can make it. There have been a few deliberate walks in the misty rain. And there has been at least one mad dash as we ran, caught in a down pour. We carry cell phones these days in case we have mis-judged the weather but I don't recall actually calling for a rescue pick up. We haven't melted yet, just been soaked to the bone.
Our other challenge is snow and ice. Half of our walk is on a gravel road without a shoulder. We have tried different boots, ice grabbers for our shoes, walking sticks to help assist us on the slipperiness. But really the danger comes if a car were to start sliding, there is no where to go. So we usually avoid walking in these conditions, especially in the dark.
O-Dark Hundred has it advantages. Usually the winds are calm before dawn. Even cold mornings can be quite pleasant without the wind creating a wind-chill. Cold air clears the atmosphere and the stars are all the more brilliant. Warm, humid summer days are much more tolerable before the sun rises adding to the heat index. Early enough to usually avoid the bugs which come out in swarms upon sunrise.
Living in the upper mid-west does have it's challenges with the weather. We have been known to have all four seasons in a day. This year we had snow two days one week followed by humidity and heat with severe storms the next week. We have learned to walk in all sorts of weather and to keep an eye on the sky.
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