It was snowing lightly early this morning when I rode off to the gym. It didn’t really count as snow: it all melted as soon as it touched the ground.
On the ride over, a few of the roads were closed except for local traffic. I didn’t get why until my curiosity overcame me in the gym: this one fellow kept looking out the window down at the street. It was the Seattle Marathon.
Scheduling a marathon in November at the heaviest part of the rainy season seemed a distinctly Pacific Northwest sort of thing to do. While eating breakfast at home and mulling this cultural oddity, I got this idea in my head. I needed to find a way to take a picture of the absurdity of a marathon in freezing rain.
My first thought was of a big puddle reflecting the Space Needle, with a runner’s shoe splashing into it. Needless to say, it’s difficult to get a crystal clear reflection of something in a puddle when someone is stepping in that puddle. As for the runners, even after 25.5 miles, they still managed to avoid all the puddles. I mean, they were already soaked, why bother avoiding the puddles?
Anyway, not sure how impressed I am with the photo above, but it captures the essence of it: ripples from rain drops, a reflection of the Space Needle, the flat colorless sky, and the dashes of blue from a runner’s shoe.