daybreak lake in the winter

Last Wednesday I ran  a long training run on the trail around the  daybreak  lake.  It was around 3:00 pm in the afternoon and the outside temperature was about 40 degrees. The lake  was closed to anyone swimming or wading in it,  in fact a large part of the water still had a thin layer of ice covering it. There were signs everywhere warning people to stay off because of the thin ice dangers. The lake is 3.4 miles around, and  I was planning on 5 laps around.

On my first lap I noticed three teenage boys on the other side of the lake hauling ‘stuff’ out on one of the larger docks. The next lap I came upon them and I could see that they had set up a motor that they had secured to the dock . It appeared they were making  a water skiing device. I watched them wade out into the freezing water and put a homemade ramp in the sand  which stuck out of the water about a foot or so. They placed  some kind of rail in which to slide over the top of with a wake board. The motor pulled a rope that  had a handle on the end.

I could hardly wait to see what would happen next.

I watched as the boys would hold the handle and wakeboard across  the ice cold lake and then let go just before smashing into the large dock on which the motor was tied to. Oh yeah, as each rider was flying  across the lake at very fast speeds, he would hop up onto the rail/ramp thing and slide across. At the same time  trying not to lose balance, and then let go before being impaled on the dock. I couldn’t believe how inventive these bored teenagers were . Sure, there were a couple of risks, being smashed to pieces on the dock, freezing to death in the 35 degree lake, being decapitated by the home built ramp but hey what’s the point of doing something illegal and dumb if there is no risk of death attached to it.

I circled the lake again and this time  I saw a police officer talking to the boys. He was probably saying something like, ‘Are you fellas insane?’ or ‘Are you kids trying to kill yourselves?’ Cops are so naive. My point is you just never know what you might see while out trying to get in a few miles of training.