Runnin' Against the Wind

If you live in the Texas Panhandle you're always running against the wind. Regardless of what you may have heard, Amarillo is THE windy city. In fact, according to a study by the American Meteorological Society, Amarillo beat Chicago as the windiest city in America.

Amarillo is the only city where the wind blows from every direction at once. You'll start to do an out and back run, thinking, "If I run against the wind out, I'll have it at my back coming home." Yeah, right! Start out, turn around, there it is again. Sometimes it feels like the wind is blowing straight down from the sky. How does that happen?

Alberto Salazar, the famous runner and now coach, said there is absolutely no benefit to running against the wind and I believe him. When you're a fat runner you have more surface area for wind to hit.

Okay, so how did I get on this subject? Living and running in Amarillo makes you constantly aware of the weather conditions since we don't have those pesky trees to deflect the wind like people do in real parts of the world. Oh, and we don't have mountains to block our view, either.

What do we have? How about some of the friendliest people anywhere. And arguably the most beautiful sunsets around. Yeah, granted the sun isn't setting behind an ocean, but the sky is spectacular at sunset here. The final scene of Indiana Jones and the Final Crusade, where the main characters rode off into the sunset, was shot just outside Amarillo. Bet you didn't know that.

When you get down to it, this may not be the greatest place to run, but I'll take it. I like my little corner of the world and I'm not leaving it anytime soon.

It's fun running down the street and hearing my name being shouted by my past and present students. You get waves from people you don't even know, but such is Amarillo. And I like it just fine.

That's my confession...what's yours?

God bless and Ever Forward!!!



TFR