An excerpt taken from my memoirs during the winter of 2002 in Moab, Utah

I am not ready yet. I swear I just shut my eyes. 5:15 a.m. comes too fast and is far too early. However, it is habit or, as some tell me, more like a ritual. Dare I say addiction? I’ll be better off running this morning than getting an extra hour of sleep. The pillow beckons, but I pull away.

I hit the alarm and roll out of bed. The hardest part of the whole process now stands before me. Stand up, take three steps and I’m in the bathroom to relieve my bladder and brush my teeth. My eyes are still glued shut as I wander to the next room and begin the dressing process. This is nowhere near as glamorous as knights donning armor for battle, boxers getting psyched for their bout or football players banging lockers and heads prior to game time. The layers begin with my tights, then on to the polypro shirt, socks, shoes and windbreaker. Hat and glasses are next. Gloves follow with the inner lining fleece and windproof mittens last.

I fumble for the doorknob. It slips through my mitted hands, but I manage to reluctantly pull it open. A cold blast of winter air hits my exposed face and reaches down to chill my deepest bones. There would be no hesitating now. The quicker I get moving the faster I’ll warm my inner layers. I click my chronograph and head down the stairs of the deck.

I find out immediately that it isn’t going to be a normal morning’s run. It has snowed during the night, about two inches. Tire tracks in the street have melted and re-frozen. I’d avoid those areas so as not to wind up on my back. The stars do an excellent stand-in job in the moon’s absence. Streetlights and porch lights are seldom and far between on the route I choose this morning.

Crunch, crunch is the only sound I hear as my feet trample through the night’s new snow. As I exhale, my visible breath rises across my face, through my glasses and disappears into the darkness from which I came.

The quiet is deafening. Nothing is moving. The newly fallen snow muffles the sounds. Usually at this same time and place I would hear distant dogs barking and an occasional car would pass blinding me with their high beams, but not this early morning. Perhaps the smarter part of the population has decided to make a better judgment call in regards to this morning’s adventure.

I round a turn in the street and head down the hill into the Pack Creek drainage. My cold knees rattle and protest the cruel decent at such an early hour. As I near the bottom of the creek’s fold, the cold, moist air that has settled in the valley blasts through my hat and gloves. I don’t hesitate and continue the climb quickly out on the other side. My respirations and heart protest now. This is the first exertion of the day. My legs have not yet warmed to the idea of pressing the pace on such a steep climb. I crest, relax and continue. This road is easily defined in the dark. The snow makes it so. I run down what I think might be the centerline, but it’s only a guess — still no traffic or any signs of life.

I wonder. If I stop running right now, and if the sun was never to rise, how long could I just stand here before my extremities and eventually my innards finally freeze? Perhaps that is what has happened to the rest of humanity this morning. I ponder, for a moment, the possibility of complete loneliness. Better not to think so much, so early in the morning. Let me concentrate on tasks much more menial. I continue running down Murphy Lane, winding my way towards the lights of Moab.

The illuminations from town throw an eerie glow off the dark, yet, remarkably red sandstone walls that surround town. The cliffs, although steep, still manage to collect a fair amount of the newly fallen snow. A menagerie of red and white color surround me as I head on…