Head North

Rick suggested last night that we head to Androscoggin Riverland State Park to run the snowmobile trails.  He figured that they would be in better shape than anything around here.  Still, we'd want to get out early to avoid any more melting.

I was happy to wake up to find nothing sore from yesterday's beastly run.  Mindy had pointed out somewhere towards the end of the BL, I hadn't complained about my knee.  Even that wasn't painful or swollen upon waking. 

As soon as we drove past Aburn Lake, I was amazed at how much deeper the snow was.  Rick said it's a real phenomenon.  There were a couple such step functions in the snow amounts on his way to work that occurred at regular locations.  It boded well for our run.

We headed out on the trail.  Great, great call Rick; the trail was so much better than around here.  Ugh!  But it just goes up to start.  Nothing hurt, yet my whole body said it was tired.  My cardio wasn't even there.  As we ran, I was afraid I was going to call it quits.  OK, I don't get to run with Rick all that much.  Suck it up.  The trail was so pretty.  I was mad at myself for leaving the camera in the car.

Amazingly, around 3ish miles in, I realized I was running fairly easily.  It took that long for my body to realize that this is what it does, what it loves to do.  About 3.5 in the trails got even better, better footing and scenery wise.  Mmmmm.  Still mad at me for not bringing the camera. 

What we did do was grab the camera when we got back to the car and head back out to get at least a few shots.  So remember, it wasn't the prettiest part of the trail.

Park Parking

Starting out

Some of the fun single track that's reminds me of Brad East

Gratework that makes there be no puddles in the trail

Deer tracks

Some of the wider trails

That is a hill

Blue

Beauty and the Beast (The Beautiful Loop Is a Beast?)

Ian.  Gotta love Ian.  He came up with the idea of turning the Beautiful Loop's 15.5 sometimes treacherous miles (condition dependent) into 20.  Of course, being the founder of the TMs, he couldn't just add more distance to the loop; the added miles would be .83 mile hill repeats up Lunch Break Hill.

 
The insane thing is this was received with enthusiasm not just laughed at.  Then came the lousy weather that erased a lot of our trails around Scoutland.  Mindy and I had planned to meet at the Brad at 7 to get a jump on the BL+, but I was worried that we wouldn't be able to follow the BL; that the trail might be melted.  So, we decided on a couple of changes.  We'd meet up with the rest of the TMs at 8 so we'd have BL pros to follow or, as a backup, if the BL wasn't runnable, we'd do the AL a couple of times and still tack on the hill repeats to get 20.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I realized I was the last one to get there again.  Damn.  The group consisted of Ian, Jeremy, Zak, Jamie, Jim, Andy, Mindy and me.  The guys went out faster than Mindy and me.  It was a fast group.  That's ok, it gave us our path to follow, plus clues to where there'd be post-holing.  I say clues because though we did see where they went through it didn't mean our path wouldn't have it, too.  I was so happy to find the trail was runnable.  We cruised along pretty well for the first 5ish miles, catching up on things.  Mindy was in PA last Saturday so we had 2 weeks to go over.

Then things started to get interesting.  There was lots of water beneath ice that was either very thin and/or melting.  Again, the guys footsteps gave us clues, but we still tried to find better ways.  Mostly, they'd found the best ways or pointed out the bad ones.  I don't think we actually said it, but both of us seemed to know that we couldn't do our normal trail appreciating (following little animal tracks, lounging in stray chairs, making snowmen, etc); this run was going to be long enough.  Doesn't mean we didn't notice tracks, the neat network of mice tunnels visible beneath the thinning snow, or our very inviting recliners.  We did have to stop to visit our highland coos (they were right by the fence) and throw the ball for Zoe, the border collie, but it was a much shorter visit than we'd normally do.  Oh, but, I jumped ahead; I should still be back in the power lines with all the impromptu rivers.

There was one particularly wide river/bog near the electrical substation that had us stumped for a while.  We decided to go where it looked like the guys had gone.  Mindy took one step.  Yikes!  She went down.  Adrenalin burst!  I think I pulled her out instantaneously.  She weighed nothing.  It was kind of like the anti-tantruming (as Calvin would say, "verbing nouns weirds language!") two-year old who goes limp and is almost impossible to lift.  She'd gone down to her knee without hitting bottom yet.  OK, we wouldn't be following those tracks.  We took a little too much time trying to decide where the best place was.  Then I came up with this brilliant idea to run back a few 10ths of a mile where the snowmobile trail branched off slightly.  I thought it might by pass the water.  I felt very smug when it looked like we had out smarted the terrain, only to find the water between us and the road crossing.  Again, we spent a lot of time trying to find the chink in its armor.  Then I notice a driveway-like road to our left.  It must have belonged to CMP.  Well, it went to the road.  We bush-wacked to it to get to the road.  I'm sure we were as wet as if we'd just sucked it up and crossed.  Speaking of being wet, though my right foot that got soaked first was cold for a bit, it amazed me how they would rewarm once our pace could be maintained.

I think it was as we approached Pownal Elementary that Mindy wondered outloud if we'd see the guys on their hill repeats.  I didn't think so, however, about half way up the steep hill, we saw Jeremy bounding down.  He was all positive and high fives as he ran by.  Yay!  It wasn't too much further up the long hill that we saw Ian, Jamie and Zak heading down.  More encouragement and high fives!  We took a second at the summit to appreciate our climb, then headed back down.  I found the down harder than the up.  Jeremy was almost all the way up, when we saw him for the last time.  He was done!  Again, the others weren't all that far back.  We/they cheered.  So impressed with how strong they were still running.

I was playing with the math of the whole thing and announced we were going to have more than 20 miles if we summited every repeat.  We could just do the 1/2 mile climb on one of the four.  Mindy, I'm sure not wanting to actually scream, "Are you kidding me???", said something to the effect, "would we be as badass?"  Of course, of course we would do the full hill repeats every time.  It's just my head was wrapped around the 20; it needed to recalibrate.

The second climb was probably the hardest for me.  I struggled to stay with Mindy.  The weird thing is I wasn't all that great on the first climb either.  On the 3rd and 4th, I seemed to do better, a lot better.  I think it was being in the lead.  Weird how following could affect me that much.  I sensed Mindy was better when she was in the lead, too.  She was having hip flexor/glute issues.  All the pains I had seemed to be overshadowed by my feet.

We were so proud of ourselves when we summited for the 4th time.  Can I have a BADASS?!  Yup.  We went to Edna and Lucy's for some needed refueling.  The warm, hardy Sweet Potato and Barely soup was just what our depleted bodies needed. And, I have to admit, I was even prouder when Ian posted he was proud of us :D

The IRS

Xar pointed out that WNR didn't seem worthy of a title for our Wednesday night adventure.  She coined Insomniac's Running Society.  I like it cause the IRS strikes fear in lots of people.  Our little society might be scary to some, but not in the same way.  Starting out in January, in Maine, after 9 pm might seem a little crazy.  It probably is, but crazy good.  There is also the fact that we both have bouts of insomnia.

After our mini-heat wave, I was worried that we'd be slogging through bogs.  Instead, we found very runnable terrain.  Some was fairly frozen snowmobile trail; the rest was frozen, clumpy field.  Both could have short stretches of ice.  We had to talk loudly to hear each other over the crunch, crunch, crunch of footfalls. 

We saw coyote tracks in the usual places.  With someone else along, they are just another fun footprint.  We also saw deer, turkey, and bunny (hare?) prints.  My favorite were the raccoon tracks.  (S)he must have just crossed our path.  The coon left wet prints on a small bridge.  On the return, they'd evaporated.

Fretless fell once.  It was less a fall and more a post-holing incident.  I had several close calls on the ice, but remained upright.  I was very impressed with Xar's ability to just run across what my Ice Spikes couldn't bite.  They are expensive, but I think I'll invest in the MicroSpikes she sported.  She was full of solutions for me.  I forget what you call them, but there is something that goes on horses ankles that she thought might be adaptable to protect my ankles - from my own kicking.

I was sad that I looked down at my Garmin.  53 minutes in.  I'd need to head back.  Fretless never has a time limit.  Someday (some night), we're gonna have to just run till we're tired.  Perhaps the Triffitts won't mind us banging on their door for a ride home.  I'm thinking, we could get there around midnight with the trails as runnable as Wednesday.

Super Sunday

Rick thought eight miles sounded good.  We wanted to get it in before heading to Brad to volunteer for the Squall.  Oh, we could have run there before, but then we wouldn't be able to get warm.  Volunteers were supposed to show up by 10am.  Rick and I decided to be running by 7:30; though given my time from yesterday, I couldn't see us getting in all eight miles.

It was -14 degrees when I woke up.  It wasn't much warmer when we went out the door.  We had hand warmers, but no toe warmers.  I took a trick from Jim; I put baggies on over my socks.  I was pleased to find they worked as good as the warmers.  I was afraid they'd just bunch up in my shoes.

We ran down the driveway to get to the snowmobile trail I ran on Saturday.  Rick laughed out loud as I vocally celebrated the trail we found.  While not the ideal track, it was so improved!  Now I held some hope that we might get in all of our run.

 Rick lead.  I was having to work to keep up.  He's definitely on the comeback.  Even though my face was totally frosting over, I had my gloves off before 2miles.  That's pretty amazing when you set out at -12!  I noticed Rick was doing the on/off with the gloves, too.  It's surprising that it's such a good way of regulating temperature.

We turned around at 45 minutes with just slightly over four miles.  What a difference a day makes!  Half way back I noticed that Rick's pace was dropping off.  He's faster, but I still have more endurance at this point.  We were only two minutes slower on the return.

We had 17 minutes to get changed into very warm dress.  It's amazing just how much colder the world is when you're just standing around.  We did a decent job.  Rick did an excellent job.  He was so bundled, nobody recognized him!  I could have used warmer gloves/mittens, but...At least I still had the hand warmers to use.  I also nuked my Thera Bear (thanks again, Dora!) and stuffed him under my jacket.

The atmosphere at the race was pure fun.  Leave it to TMs to  host a race under such freezing conditions, yet have so many volunteers and crazy participants!  The 2nd annual Squall didn't double its size, but it sure grew!  I love watching the snowshoers finish, their backs all covered in the snow their shoes kicked up, their faces frosty and bright.  Fun!.

It was almost two by the time we got home.  A little time for chores before the football games.  We were happy for Pat fans, happier for the Giants!  Yup, a pretty super Sunday!!!
 

Scouting Report

The plan was to meet up with the TMs to run the BL on Saturday.  Ian said it couldn't be any worse than the Saturday before.  I always rush to get there on time.  I don't know how that happens; I am always up early.  Spot needs to go out.  Ally doesn't get enough love.  The dishes are still in the sink from the night before.  I get distracted.  I was happy to be out the door with at least a minute or two to spare.

I was about 10 minutes away from Brad when a wave of panic hit me; had I brought my shoes?  No!  Crap, crap, crap.  I looked through my contacts, but couldn't find Ian's number.  At least I remembered seeing Jamie was going to run the BL.  I had his number.  He could tell Ian for me so they didn't hang around waiting for me to show.  Jamie picked right up.  Crap, again.  His yes to the BL was for next weekend.  OK, did he have Ian's number.  No.  Let's see.  Snowman would.  I looked for his number.  I didn't have his, but I had Danielle's.  She said she'd call Ryan who was on his way to the Brad anyway.  Definitely need to remember to get numbers.

Well, it didn't make sense to drive home get my shoes and head back to Brad.  I was going to be running for enough time without adding more travel time.  I would run from home.  I knew it would be hard going.  I didn't think any snowmobiles had been out after our 10 inches of snow the day before.  I drove home, told Rick my tale, put my shoes on, and headed out.


Well, one snowmobile had been through.  It did nothing to pack the trail.  Well, at least, it marked it.  I figured this was proper punishment for forgetting my shoes.  I was sure the conditions must be better from the park.  Still, though very happy not to have a heart rate monitor on (I'm sure I'd have been scared), I was enjoying the day.  Equipped with my camera, I planned to capture the beautiful,winter scenes I was seeing. 

the path less traveled

 

that's a good up even though it doesn't look it

The color doesn't do this scene justice

I was amazed by the amount of coyote tracks.  One guy followed the snowmobile trail for quite some time before jumping off in what must have been pursuit.  Some scattilogical evidence.  Notice the hair in there. 

Crap

The dark, dark green of the spruce and pines against the brilliant snow backed up with dark skies, it was incredible.  Then I started noticing the tops of some of the trees belonged in a Dr. Seuss book.  You would see it too, but the camera battery died.  Some of my enthusiasm for the scenery died with it.  Weird.  I did have fun watching the various tracks that crossed my path or that I ran along with.  I saw hare, which I rarely see, deer, various rodents, and more that puzzled me.  In some areas of the power lines lined with juniper it was obvious that a coyote(s) were running around looking for some of those rodents.  They were just running around; there was evidence of digging into the snow around the junipers.

I was disappointed to see the path I took last year had no travel.  I wondered if the landowners had withdrawn permission or if it just hadn't been ridden over yet.  Well, new direction then.

After three miles in, the trail was a little more traveled.  It didn't make the traction good, but it was better than the single sled.  My pace might have gotten down to 12 min/mile.  Woohoo!  I didn't even have a mile of that before the trail split.  It should have been easy for me to choose the more traveled, but there was a sign indicating Topsham following the path where, again, it would just be a path of a single sled.  I really want to find the way to the Triffitts.  This was a recon run of sorts.  The thing that tipped the scale in favor of the harder path was the more traveled one went practically in the backyard of someone who has rottweilers.

The terrain became hillier.  I struggled.  My Nuun was freezing and hard to get out of the bottles.  Still, there's something inherently exciting about exploring, about the struggle.  When I finally reached another road, I'm pretty sure I let out some naughty language.  I couldn't believe I was only to Gould Rd.  Ugh!  I plodded on.  The woods started looking familiar.  At an intersection of snowmobile trails, I recognized where I had run the year before.  I made a mental note to try that way on the return.

Finally, 6.7 miles and 1:40 minutes in, I decided I better head back.  I took spur I was pretty sure I recognized.  Yup.  What a beautiful stretch of woods!  I was still able to appreciate it.  Even more, I appreciated how quickly I popped out onto route 9.  It's not like this path would be all that much shorter, but I knew where I was.  That helps when you're as tired as I was.  There were a few little tweaks of change on this stretch, too.  I almost opted for running along the road, fearing that I wouldn't be able to join back up with the path I wanted (remember the one I knew from last year was not used).  I started along the sidewalk.  It wasn't plowed or shoveled, but snowmobiles had gone over it - a lot.  It felt good to get the legs stretched out a bit.  My pace dropped below 10mpm.  Till I looked over the pasture across the way and noticed the hill I should be running on.  If I retraced my steps back to the place I'd jumped off onto the sidewalk, I think I could link up.  It took some effort to force myself from the easy running.  I was on a mission.  I had to stick to it.

Sure enough, it connected back. I made it home in 3:34:xx with 13.5 miles charted.  I felt good with my effort, good with my reconnaissance, but a bit bad about my knee.  The one I fell on continues to swell after long runs.  I cannot kneel on a hard surface.  It even hurt when I fell in the fluffy snow on this run.  Bad knee.

The Time to Run

Since starting work, it's been a struggle to squeeze in my midweek runs.  I need to get at least three in.  That has meant a lot of late suppers.  Sometimes it's after eight before there's food.  That might not seem all that late, but Rick goes to bed at 9.  The poor guy has to get up for work at 4:30 am.  

It hit me on Wednesday.  Why I didn't think of it sooner, I have no idea.  I should run after Rick goes to bed.  I was so excited about this revelation that I posted it on FB.  To my amazement, I got an offer for company!!!  Fretless knocked on our door just after 9.  I introduced her to Spot, Ryan and Nori, and my Ally Kitty.  Then it was the great outdoors.

The going was pretty tough to start.  I thought we'd head out back the way the FatAss went last year, but there were far too many briars.  It was still pretty hard going the other direction since we were running in virgin snow.  Fortunately, we were able to pick up snowmobile tracks around 1/4 mile in.  The night was a classic winter night.  The air was cooold; the sky starry. 

Fretless and I had only run together once before so lots of the conversation was just finding out stuff.  It flowed pretty easily except when the crunch, crunch , crunch of the crusty snow made it hard to hear each other. 

A couple miles in, I was a bit disoriented.  Things didn't look like they should.  It took me a few minutes to realize the snowmobile trail had been rerouted to the other side of a field.  In daylight, I would have known right away.  At night, I was baffled for a bit.

I asked Xar how much time she had.  I forget the exact phrasing, but the gist of it was unlimited.  We ended up with just about 7 miles.  Xar was decorated by the night.  She was totally frosted.  I wish I had thought to take a picture.  The best part was when she said that she was in the area on Wednesdays and we could make this WNR!  Yay!!!  The next night, it would become an even bigger deal
.
The next night...I didn't get out till almost 10pm.  We'd just finished watching a fairly scary show that included a wolfish creature.  Smart.  It's funny how much scarier running at 10 is than running at 6pm.  They are both dark.  I wanted to run the same path as the previous night.  Instead, I just ran a mile loop four times.  Each lap seemed to get scarier.  At least I was laughing at myself for being so scared.  At least I didn't let the fear stop me.  Oh, did I mention I carried my tonfa with me?

Kicked Ass Kicks Ass

Saturday's run beat me up.  I got my ass kicked.  I saw only two minutes of the Patriot's rout before I was asleep.  Then, as if I'd run a really long run, I had sleep issues the rest of the night.  My body felt tired right down to the bone.

When we woke to a temperature of -12, I envisioned letting myself of the hook of running 8-10 miles; my bones still said they were tired.  Rick and I tried to find the right layers to wear.  I couldn't find my stash of toe and hand warmers.  Finally, I came up with 3 hand warmers and a pair of toe warmers borrowed from Linda.  Rick said his toes would be fine and, chivalrously took just one of the hand warmers (but with the warmer mittens).

When we drove into Brad's parking lot, there was one car there.  It was NJ Dave's, but Dave wasn't in it.  As we prepared for the run (putting on shoes, putting in the warmers, letting the Garmin's capture the satellites, etc...), Dave ran back into the lot, with a bright red face.  He'd been running for an hour already.  After doing the ankle-killing, crust breaking on some of the single track, he'd run the snowmobile trail.  And, get this, the snowmobiles had been out.  YAY!

Dave ran with us for the first 30 minutes before heading back (he wanted 2hrs).  He was very good company telling us about his plans for X City Running.

The conditions were so much better than the day before.  By the time, we'd been running 45 minutes, I felt healed.  Running makes things better  - even being beaten up from running!  Oh, I forgot to mention that our hand warmers did not work.  Evidently, they'd been compromised.  They were hard little rocks of no heat.  Fortunately for me, Linda's toe warmers were fine.  Like Saturday, I felt overdressed.  I guess I thought it would be windier.  When we started it was two degrees.  It was 9 when we finished.

The way back was harder.  Our running had chewed up the not-very-firmly-packed snow enough to make it a bit harder.  Still I felt better after the run than before.  We got in 9 miles.  Nice.

Great LSD

I dressed warm because the National Weather Service told me that the wind chills would be in the single digits for the entire run.  When I pulled into Brad's parking lot, I think all the other Monsters were already there.  Ian asked what I was thinking.  Um, I just thought we'd stick to the plans to run 15ish around the park.  Alan had been out already and reported that the trails weren't good and the snowmobiles hadn't been out.  Ian saw some evidence of snowmobile activity on a road along the Beautiful Loop.  So, the plan was to attempt the loop.

I'm not sure if it was a conscious plan, an inevitable occurrence, or just lollygagging, but Mindy and I were trailing the group (Ian, Jeremy, Zak, Nathan, Alan, and Ben) immediately.  I told Mindy right away that I was a little tired and, maybe dehydrated, from my late night out; I'd been to see Christine's husband's band play at Buck's Naked (they were really, really good).

It seemed like a bad trip.  Mindy and I were working hard, yet, when we looked at our Garmin, we'd only gone 1.8 miles in 30 something minutes.  Ugh!  The Beautiful Loop is 15 miles.  At that rate...OK, we'd keep going and could reassess at the next road.  We decided the Animal Loop would be our out.

So I mentioned that NOAA said it was gonna be cold.  Not so much.  It wasn't long before I peeled off my outer layer to short sleeves.  I was really glad I had included my Inov8 gators; the crust on the snow was really mean to the ankles.

At the first road, Mindy and I opted to continue.  We started to enjoy some of the run by noticing the animal tracks.  Still, the going was rough.

A great thing of running with Mindy, we talk so much about so many things, some of the hardness gets pushed to the background.  I almost said, "pretty soon".  Ha!  After a looong time (remember LSD?  the long was the time more than the distance), we reached the powerlines.  We were sure that would be easier.  Ha and Ha!  Neither of us had been that far on the BL before.  How long before we reached the next bail point?  By now I had my outer shirt back on.  I was still warm enough, but my arms were getting raw.

I think it was when we finally crossed route 9, we were rewarded for staying the course with wonderful, wonderful ATV(?) tracks.  It was the firmest footing of the day.  Ah, the trip began to turn to a magical, mystery tour.  Did we find the recliners first or see the eagle first?  Who knows?  Who cares!  They both happened.  We felt like we were rewarded for being badasses.
 

The miles our Garmin displayed still seemed to be a cruel joke, but we were now having lots of fun.  We identified deer, coyote, fox, and lots of rodent tracks.  We appreciated to snow adorned trees.  We laughed at missteps, wet feet, and falls.  We had to stop to find the tracks our fearless fellow Monsters were laying down.  We actually thought a few had bailed cause there were so few tracks.  We should have known, since breaking trail was cruel, they'd be sharing footfalls.  Oh, and, given who was out there, we should have known they'd keep running.

I'm not sure how early in, but Mindy and I had decided to go with the time we had expected to run to determine when we'd call it a day.  So, we'd shoot for 3.5 hours at least.  By the time we reached where the power lines of the Connector cross Elmwood, we realized we'd better take the road back to the park.  Instead of the 15 miles of the BL, we'd get in 13.8 instead.

I have to confess that I started to feel it in the last few miles.  It seemed like Mindy started to feel it in the exact opposite way; she was getting stronger and stronger.  She really pulled me up those last couple of road hills.  Scout and Squirrel make a good team.  So the long, (very)slow distance run was pretty epic.  We met back up with the guys at E&Ls to tell the tales of the trail.  Yep, epic. 

 

Strange Reward

The drive home was .... long.  The traffic on 295 was pretty determined to keep me to 30 mph.  There were a few stretches I was able to go 40.  The drive from Freeport to Lisbon Falls on 125 was better in that I didn't have to deal with too much traffic, but the roads were definitely slipperier.  On the steep hill approaching the Andy, two cars were stopped unable to make it up.  Luckily, they didn't block my way down.

By the time I got home, I just wanted to have a beer on the couch with Rick.  I knew I needed to get out, though.  I made myself change.  My headlamp created my own snow globe right in front of me.  I was running the fields that I had the night before.  Wow!  Going was tough.  I thought of my commute.  The cars' wheel would spin and the tach would rev.  Well, my wheels were spinning and I'm sure a hear rate monitor would show my bpms revving.  That's where the similarities end.  I didn't have to deal with other peoples inability to navigate the conditions.  I was the opposite of tense.

Oh!  But I was scared (kind of a strong word for what it was) for a bit.  Cresting the hill heading out to the Davis's fields (long, open, windy stretch not the across the street hill - for readers who have run the FatAss), I saw two glowing eyes in the field below.  Could have been just about anything, maybe Bambi, but, being alone in the dark, I knew it was a coyote.  Again, it probably would have been fine to keep running my intended path anyway, but I turned back.  I could stand to run the hill across the street again.  Yeah, that's really what I wanted to do all along.

Running there, I was struck by how quickly my tracks from just 20 minutes earlier were being erased.  Almost like the anti-magic footprints that Ian left.  So you can deduce from that, it was windy.  So my reward was running in conditions that were hard.  The feeling that I did it.  I got out there.  Then I got to sit on the couch with Rick and have that beer.

Catching Up

Well.  Now I'm nine runs behind in posts.  I'll try to recapture them, but, I had some really great runs in there that I know I won't do justice.  Any way...

Dec. 31st -  Heading to the Brad, I was surprised as the roads became more and more slick.  Well, it was supposed to get warmer.  There was a pretty good group of Monsters in the parking lot.  The bulk of them headed out ahead of Ian, Mindy, and me.  I can't remember why really, but we were planning on a longer run than the rest of them.  Starting out, I didn't hear Mindy's shoes clicking like Ian's and mine.  She had been away for a bit over a week and didn't realize it was screw shoe time.  Leave it to Ian!  He had screw and the cordless driver right in his vehicle.  Mindy (she commented feeling like a horse being shod) was equipped with screw shoes without ever taking off a shoe!

There was icy patches everywhere.  The mist that came down added to the slipperiness.  Still we bopped along chatting.  As the run time increased, I could tell Mindy's body was letting her down.  She never complained, but she was coughing and sniffling.  She had fluid behind her ear and was dealing with balance issues all the while handling the difficult trail conditions. 

We ended back by the parking lot near 12 miles in.  That was good timing for me; I could take advantage of the outhouse.  It was then that I noticed that my Fuelbelt was totally iced over.  Instead of getting warmer and less slippery, everything was icing!  Mindy made the smart decision to call it a day right there.  Ian had another 6+ in mind.  That was a bit more than I had originally planned, but 15 or 18?  Not really that big of a deal.

Yeah, that's what I thought till we headed back out there.  Yikes!  Things were icier than I'd ever run on, but I didn't want to back out.  However, when Ian almost wiped out cause even the dirt was icy, I said I was gonna call it quits.  Ian proposed a less scary way to get in a couple of miles on the way back to the parking lot.  I'm glad I agreed; it was almost magical.  As Ian ran along the Reverse Mindy, he left snowy footprints on the leaves.  I'd never seen anything like it.  It seemed like a ghost was running along.  Actually, he was just chopping up the ice covering on the leaves, but it really did look cool.

We got in just over 15 miles.  We met back up with Mindy at E&L's.  I felt like we were justly rewarded for our efforts; The special was TBLTs!!!

Jan 1st - Happy 2012!  Rick and I met up with Danielle at the Brad.  I was a little afraid of what the trails would be like.  I suggested we might try the Animal Loop.  Danielle, probably rightly, was afraid the dirt roads might be just as icy as the trails.  OK, we'd try Mindy's Loop.  We could always bail it it was too bad.

I'm not sure if the new year had brought a new "icier than I'd ever run on" or just a different icy.  We had to plan our footfalls very carefully and go VERY slowly.  Still, it was enjoyable; We rarely get to run with Danielle.  Plus, it was an adventure, a good way to start the new year of running.  By the time we'd gone 5+miles, things were starting to get a little more grippy.  We could even run at a non-pathetic pace in a few stretches.  So, our eight miles took a long time, but we were all happy with the run.

Jan. 2nd - This was a day off from work, since the first fell on a Sunday.  My roommate from college had come up to visit.  She is quite a hiker, but is just getting back to real fitness after a long recovery from foot surgery.  I proposed we head to the Brad.  We'd pick a length of time and meet back at the cars (she was leaving for home from there).  I decided to explore the Tryon Mountain area.  It was fun.  Some of the trails I had to turn back just because of time constraints, but knew I'd check them out again.  Clarice, my friend, had a nice walk; I don't think she really considered it a hike.  She did sport her full pack just for the exercise.

Jan 3rd - I am having a hard time making the TMR TNR, even though it's practically on my way home.  The fact that it's a little off my path and doesn't start right when I get there, puts me getting home a little after 8pm.  Not so bad?  Well, Rick generally goes to bed by 9: he has to get up at 4:30 am.  I'm not sure who checked with who, but Mindy was still not feeling 100% and thought the Back Cove might be a better option for her.  It definitely worked for me; I was home by 7 and got to have Mindy's company :)

Jan 5th - Four miles in the fields and woods around the house with Rick.  I'm lucky; he could have run in the daylight at work, but knew I'd be running at night. 

Jan. 7th - Another epic Saturday spent at the Brad, this time with Gnarls and Squirrel!  We were looking for 15 and ended up with 16.  Heading out the Connector, we did a little more exploring on Tryon.  Mindy had done some bushwacking and new trail finding with Ian earlier in the week.  We covered some of the same ground and I noted where my Monday run intersected this one.  Then we headed out to the power line.  The trails had patches of ice, but nothing bad.  You just had to keep a keen eye on the trail.  Of course, I felt compulsed to announce every little patch I saw.

It was good to run with Emma, especially since we got to show her the heeland coos along with the other wonderful animals on the Animal Loop.  Though I normally shun roads, I do love the Animal Loop.  It has wicked cool animals and mostly back, dirt roads.  It was also good to peel off some quicker miles.  These long runs on icy trails take a loooong time!

Oh!  And besides the animals on the Loop, we saw lots of evidence of varied animals along the trail.  There were coyote, deer, squirrel, and turkey tracks.  The turkeys appeared to have had quite the party.  I can picture the males doing their plumage display from the feather prints in the snow.  Then there were tracks I couldn't identify.  I really have to remember to google fisher tracks.  That would be my guess.

Jan 8th - Rick and I ran the Connector enough to get in 9 miles.  The going was a lot easier with less ice.  It was pretty perfect weather.  Maybe tomorrow I'll get up some pictures.  Besides the ones I put up from the 7th run, I brought the camera on a few other runs.

Jan 10th - TNR VNR  Rick and I had another pretty great home run getting in just over four miles.

Today - Four solo miles around here.  Nice.

Done.

What's the Date?

Well, I've not been very diligent about writing this new year.  I think I remember a lot of the runs pretty well and promise to try to catch up tonight.  Okay, not promise...but I plan on catching up tongiht.