Last night, sitting in the garage with my Ally Kat, I heard the rain bouncing off the roof and patio. Crap. I imagined a mess for the next day's run. Surprise! Instead, I woke to find a sprinkling of powdered sugar covering all of outside. I'm glad Spot asked for her walk early so that I realized the conditions were perfect (nearly) for running. Before it could melt too much, I hurried to get out there.
My screw shoes were still soaked from yesterday's run. I wore my new screwless Inov8s. I didn't even bother with my gaiters; I could walk on top of the snow walking Spot. My first mile and a half were seemingly effortless (compared to the last week of running). When I crossed the stream, heading up the "road" to the manure pile, I ran across what looked like a wet spot. Oooops! Ice. Crap. It's amazing the difference between screw shoes and not. And it's amazing how hard dirt can be when it's really a frozen clod. Interestingly, I hurt the same knee and elbow as on my previous fall. Fortunately, I whacked the front of my knee and not the side like before. It took a bit before I got my stride back.. Then, not even 1/4 mile later, I went through snow and ice into water. It made me laugh. Get cocky on an off-road run and you pay the price. Altough, there wasn't much I could do for that stretch...I plunged my feet several more times before getting back to the very runnable section.
From then on, I was back to running on top of crusty snow covering lots more ground than I could before. If I didn't have errands to get to, I'd have run longer than the 10K I got in. It was good to run faster than normal, on new territory, but, believe or not, since I wasn't hurt (other than a wicked good bruise), the 5% of dicey running contributed to a really good run (* ha! how do you like them apples, John ! ).
we're tied!
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