Kevin Beck on running in New England

The New England running experience is unique for the wild variety of environmental conditions we Yankees face. The unfolding of every season offers the promise of something fresh and often forgotten.
Most would agree that autumn is king; the heavy, lazy days of summer, when training under a glaring sun can become a denervating chore, yield to crisp, cool afternoons and foliage-laced vistas - unparalleled pleasures with no apparent downsides.
Too soon, though, fall morphs into winter, a mercurial trimester of unpredictable severity: today’s Arctic blast is tomorrow’s heavenly jaunt through a thin coat of fresh snow, and the next ice storm is never far over the horizon. So winter, too, has its own hard-earned rewards. But the scarcity of daylight and the persistent, gnawing chill test a runner’s motivation and commitment to the limit, and when spring breaks it is always a welcome change.
Come springtime, tracks and roads begin to clear and trails become accessible. Lycra tights and windbreakers are merrily exchanged for shorts and T-shirts. The racing season cranks into gear. The sun, having been reduced for months to an illusion, reasserts itself, infusing our bodies and minds with its power. The drawbacks: wind and mud, mud, mud. My laundry machines spin eternally in March and April. I often return from runs looking like a refugee from a Picasso nightmare, smeared and splattered with an array of earth tones - clay, dirt, and slush.	Top
Finally, though the transition is often unpredictable and indistinct, we have summer. Truly cold days are banished to memory. Sunlight is generous and dry conditions (usually!) prevail. But with these gifts arrives a hellish phenomenon I somehow manage to forget, year after year, a factor I neglect to consider when grumbling over the atrocities of the gloomier seasons.
Bugs.
I could stop at that one word, for every rural dweller can readily relate. While the banalities of winter - churning through deep snow in absolute darkness and graceless, jarring tumbles wrought by black ice - are foul enough, there is nothing quite so dismaying as being chased down an otherwise beautiful, empty, rolling country lane by gangs of tenacious, carnivorous fiends with wings.	Top
The mosquito, the archetypal insect pest in the world at large, is generally of little concern to runners because of its modest airspeed: mosquitoes simply can’t hang. However, they quickly make their presence felt when a runner is forced to answer the call of nature. The instant you stop, mosquitoes are everywhere. Try to maintain a modicum of dignity in this scenario: you’re squatting behind a bush with your tenderest parts exposed, slapping frantically at your body like Bobby McFerrin on methamphetamines and trying to rid yourself of biological ballast at the same time. I’ll admit to some splashing and poor sanitary practices on such occasions, gladly exchanging any pretense at hygiene for a hasty escape from swarms of humming, probing blood-thieves. Better to be stained than a source of nourishment for these mongrels.
Next in this rogues’ gallery are more savage critters - horseflies and deerflies. In truth, I can’t tell them apart, and my spell checker tells me only one of them exists. No matter; they’re equally hateful. Zooming along in one’s wake in agitated squadrons, they can match any pace and tear off huge chunks of flesh, seemingly on the fly. Furtive, desperate glances backward to assess this enemy’s boundless strength serve only to affirm what I already know - that the buzzing cloud of implacable predators is as inescapable as my own shadow. When I manage to squash one, usually against my noggin, I know the fallen warrior will be efficiently replaced by a standby; faced with the prospect of only a Pyrrhic victory, I draw consolation from the ferocious hope that in its last instant of life, the little bastard suffered immeasurably.
Black flies are another issue. As with mosquitoes, a runner can elude the black fly’s stinging bite through modest velocity alone. But for those of us who run shirtless, this insect’s kamikaze legacy - an ample coating of one’s torso and thighs with their odious corpses - is all too prominent, rendering even the most bug-stained windshield immaculate by comparison. Long showers are required to extract the carcasses of dozens of black flies from one’s chest, legs, hair, forehead and face. Not surprisingly, these are also the most likely of the bunch to find their way into your gullet. Even assuming this inexpensive protein supplementation has some nutritive value, there is little in life so vile as swallowing - or worse, inhaling - a bug of any sort. It knocks you from endorphin-happy cruise control into a retching, spitting state of utter disgust in a flash. Enough said.	Top
If I’ve led you to believe these various pests work independently, like the seasons, I apologize. Bag the notion. Bugs couldn’t care less about first dibs or territorial rights. Any one group is more than capable of eating you alive by itself, but it is their combined assault that leaves the most stoic of would-be athletes cursing and sobbing, swollen and pock-marked. As an example, witness a "run" I endured last weekend.
This endeavor was misguided from the outset. I was relying on careful study of a U.S. Geological Survey map to guide me through virgin territory. These maps are thorough, accurate and painstakingly detailed; what I blithely ignored was that the particular edition at my disposal was printed in 1927, when the only runners in this country were found on the undersides of sleds.
At first I found my way quite nicely. An old road, no more than twin ruts slicing through the woods now, was right where I expected to find it. Though the bugs were present in large numbers, my path was clear, and maintaining seven-minute pace was sufficient to keep them at bay.	Top
But the trail gradually became less and less distinct. It seemed the landscape had undergone a few changes over the last seven decades. Still, I persisted in my folly, crashing through denser and denser stretches of growth that I was sure had to open up again into a legitimate trail. Meanwhile, my near-naked body was being whipsawed by brambles, and my pace was markedly reduced. And the bugs began to feed.
Black flies - petty pinches, but annoying. Horseflies and deerflies - those bites hurt. Even te odd ambitious mosquito, seeking its piece of the organic pie. I began swearing indiscriminately, as if my pursuers could be repelled by displays of vulgarity. Before long, a large bug bounced off the corner of my flapping maw, which I slammed shut. Knowing better but galvanized by vexation, I sped up, even as the terrain sloped steeply upward and the woods grew ever thicker. Oxygen debt began to take hold because I refused to open my mouth, muffling my swears and leaving me grunting and snorting like an animal.	Top
I reached the top of the hill, clawing at branches and clinging to the illusion that I was moving in a straight line. Then I spotted a clearing ahead. Horseflies (deerflies?) bounced off my head like popcorn. They were alighting on my bare back now, gobbling away at precious pockets of subcutaneous fat stores. To combat them I swung my arms wildly, like a boxer, and rocked from side to side - anything to mobilize my shoulder blades, the preferred landing pad of these damnable fliers.
So there I was, pounding down a non-trail like Sasquatch, flapping my limbs and gasping for air through my nose. And still cursing - albeit in primal noises - like a sailor. This was when I discovered my "clearing" was a swamp.
Actually it was a small lake, or perhaps an inland sea. Beavers had obviously been at work here.. I was confronted by brackish water of indeterminate depth. The stink of soggy, decaying vegetation was powerful. My quest to solve the trail riddle was a categorical failure. I was beaten. Rather than fault my own judgment, I railed against the long-dead surveyors that had led me to this mess. And like a fool, I stopped.	Top
Guess where the bugs, when they aren’t actively hunting, like to hang out?
The ravaging immediately began in earnest. Miniature vultures too eager and rapacious to await my natural death began ripping, buzzing, and tearing at me from every angle. I swatted haplessly in a dozen directions, using my cap as a weapon. None of this helped. Beset by an infinite number of monstrosities, I hopped in place and shielded my head with my arms in a pathetic, token gesture of resistance. I was on the verge of tears.
Suddenly, that fifty-yard stretch of water standing in my way didn’t look so ominous after all. In fact, I was pretty sure it was a trail.
So I fled. I was quickly up to my ankles, knees, and thighs in lukewarm water that reeked of cloying plant matter. The muck of ages sucked at my shoes as I surged and splashed along, adding gruesome farting noises to my interminable swearing. Something punctured the sole of my shoe - I was wearing a new pair, which had not asked for this. I was in over my waist and preparing to launch into a swim before I realized I was moving into shallower waters again. Far from civilization, the sounds I made seemed impossibly loud, splashes and shouts echoing across the marsh and frightening distant waterfowl into a honking, flapping exodus toward more serene environs. I was an abomination. And finally, laughing at the absurdity of it all, I reached dry land. Blessed, firm soil.	Top
Where the bugs waited.
There was no trail, of course.
But I made it home, living to tell of this misbegotten adventure. Arriving at my doorstep, I was soaked, covered by angry red welts and scratches. My tricot shorts, I’ll admit, were a tad obscene in their saturated state. My shoes, cloaked in unspeakable guck and weighing several pounds, would be useless for the better part of three days. I clasped my hat in my fist and scowled as I threw open the door - and shut it just as quickly. That door was the only real defense I had.	Top
My girlfriend, lying on the couch and looking impossibly sane, barely glanced up from her book as she asked, "How was your run?"
As I readied a caustic reply, something bit me on the shoulder. What followed is unprintable.
So next January, when the cruelty of Old Man Winter has you looking several months ahead in giddy anticipation of warmer runs to come, give a moment’s pause to what might really lie ahead.
And if you happen across anything alive and smaller than you, kill it!	Top