Ghost Town Holiday Runs

Last Christmas I ran an uncomfortably warm (outside temperature @ 70 degrees) 20 miles, trying to prepare for a couple of marathon races in January and February. Today, on another holiday six months later, I ran 7.18 miles in 84-88 degree conditions, just trying to maintain a consistent training routine without any particular races planned for the foreseeable future. In both runs, I was uncomfortable with the weather (the Christmas conditions were also humid) but acquitted myself well by covering the distances with "honest" pacing and having decent recoveries from both. Another factor tying these two runs together was what I observed around me.

I expected last Christmas to be a bit of an ordeal, anticipating a lot of families outside with children trying out their new toys and running out into the street (and annoyingly getting in my way). But instead, the whole area seemed like a ghost town, reaching the point where it was starting to feel creepy. Now fast forward to today: I began my run around noon, having waited for the customary morning humidity to dissipate. I expected to see a lot of families outside, including a lot of cookouts. But like Christmas, it seemed as if everyone had gone into hiding (except for a handful of souls outside doing yard work). It wasn't until the 35-minute mark in my run when I saw my first cookout: it turned out to be the last as well during my slightly more than an hour-long jaunt (1:05:44). Other than that, the only people I saw out anywhere were a couple of groups sitting together outside their homes near the end of my run.

I think, our so-called terrible economy notwithstanding, that people still like to pack up the car and do outings on holidays instead of celebrating at their homes. I wonder, though, if I had done today's run straight down Main Street in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, whether the streets wouldn't suddenly be empty of people as well (common sense tells me it would remain impossibly packed). The effect reminds me of the opening scene in Vanilla Sky, when Tom Cruise's character is driving straight through Midtown Manhattan...and finds the place utterly deserted, sending him into a panic. With me, though, the relative absence of people would send me into fits of joy!