“The Boston Buildup 15K has been rescheduled due to icy conditions on the roads of Connecticut”, was the message I received yesterday in my e-mail. Immediately I was on the phone and on Twitter letting folks know that with snow expected, there was only one place to go in the morning, Rockefeller Park in Sleepy Hollow, NY.

Rockies is a State Park about 25 miles north of Grand Central Station that was deeded by the Rockefeller family and has become known as the singular best place to run around New York City. But because it requires a train ride, it is also the most underused running resource in the state.

This morning I was joined by my friends Josh, (@speedysasquatch), Jackie (@jackievny), and Farrah, who is smart enough to not have a Twitter handle.

(Press the visible arrow to show the photos and then press the arrow at the bottom left to play the slide show)

This is what running is all about. As you can see from these photos, we had an AMAZING time, and got in an absolutely fantastic 12-mile run without running into or on ice due to the fresh powder that fell last night and was deep enough to create a perfect surface to run on. Farrah and I recently participated in a focus group with our good friends from Suunto where they asked us what we enjoyed most about running. Today, we looked at each other and said, this was it. Fresh snow, pure nature, good friends and miles and miles of unobstructed trails. We all agreed that our upper hamstrings and gluts got a serious workout from having to lift our legs out of the snow in a much more pronounced manner that we are often used to doing, even though we know that we should.

The temperature was absolutely perfect and allowed me to run in shorts, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a buff, gloves, and a cap. Because of the fresh snow, I wore Get-A-Grips for additional traction and gators to keep the snow out of my trail shoes.

We often get complacent in our daily patterns, and getting onto a Metro North Train for 40 mins to head up north from Manhattan may seem like a lot of effort. But like most things in life, it’s embracing the experiences that are outside of the norm that make our lives worth living.

Hope you’ll join us the next time.

During my excursions this past holiday in Ohio, I came across this really cute GM vehicle, the Chevrolet HHR – good carrying capacity, good fuel economy, peppy action and oh wait, what’s this…

A window sticker that was not added by the owner and it didn’t read “California, Get a Life”, “Obama ‘09″ or something similar.

Upon closer examination, I realized it was a warning to those who would carry things on the roof of this car. Immediately, my mind thought of the three bike racks and wheel holders that I have on top of my truck. Consider what must have prompted GM to put this sticker on their car in the first place and who is typically buying this vehicle?

• a) a bunch of triathletes or cyclists with Yakima or Thule racks
• b) a bunch of hunters trying to tie dead animals to the roof of their vehicles
• c) the Beverly Hillbillies
• d) teenage highway surfers
• e) all of the above

Let me know you’re thoughts.

This is what happens when we are working as hard as we can in an environment of economic uncertainty. Clearly making oneself as relevant and valuable as possible is just plain smart career management in times like these. Peter Drucker would be proud; focus on core value drivers, positively impact them and work as effectively as possible to drive measurable results. What that leaves out is time to write, outside of all of the writing I’m doing around developing a Consulting Mindset and Business Transformation capabilities for our firm.

The measurable effect to this is that I haven’t been posting to my blog as frequently as I would like. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been doing some writing; I have a dozen half-baked diatribes cluttering my draft folder but they haven’t risen to the level necessary to be published where anyone would be able to cogently follow my random thought process.

That’s why I’ve been thrilled that I can point readers to especially cool and interesting articles published recently by others that have inspired me or at a minimum have given me pause to think about things in a slightly different way.

Today’s article comes from my very own cousin Stacie Krajchir, a regular contributer to The Huffington Post who brought to life what I have been suggesting for the past few months. No matter how bad things are for you, there’s someone out there who is in worse shape, and you can make a difference for them and for you. Aside from helping them just because its the right thing to do, it really can help to put you in a positive frame of mind and open up opportunities that you otherwise may have missed.

Therefore without further unnecessary ceremony, I encourage you to give a read to “Giving Back While Broke: How Playing A Little Bill-Paying Roulette Led Me To Bring The Power Of Pictures To Children In Mexico“, by Stacie Krajchir.