Spring Running

I know many people look forward to Spring.  There's maybe a couple of weeks of it that I might actually enjoy, but mostly I hate it.  The trails can go from firmly packed and enjoyable to post-holing torture overnight.  Even if you are willing to take the torture, you don't want to risk messing up the trails, in case they can firm up again.

I opened my weather app way more than usual to figure out the way to arrange my running for the week.  Even though I'd done my longer runs on the weekend, I decided to put them on Wed and Thur this week.  I was pretty sure Riverlands would be pretty sweet on Wed.

I was right!  I didn't get started until 10am, so was a bit concerned that I'd be building up huge snow packs on my microspikes on the second half of my run.  I was pleasantly surprised that, while the trail did get tacky, it seemed to pack under my feet instead of sticking.  It was even better running!

I wonder if the squirrel survived

My first island

Second island

 The single track wasn't packed; I stuck with the ATV trails, except for my excursions to the islands.  There were enough recent snowmobile tracks to make me feel confident the ice would hold.  I went out the first, probably largest of them.  It has a picnic table that looks like it gets a good deal of use, snowmobilers in winter, boaters in summer.  The second island was one I'd never been on before.  I did have to bushwhack (snow plod?) to get down to the river, but, as almost always, the adventure was worth it.

The Turner ATV club hosts a Halloween ride at the park every year.  I have run a great deal since the last one.  So the skeleton in the woods took me by surprise!  15 runners had just run past is on Saturday's group run, but none saw 😂 I'm sure a Riverlands 100 runner could get startled; it does seem to be glow in the dark.  I'll try to remember to take it down.

This will scare a 100 miler at night!

So I got in my 16 miles pretty much having the park to myself.  I did see one fat biker leaving and 3 snowmobiles.  Oh!  And I heard an owl.  If the snow wasn't so deep, I'd have gone into the woods to see if I could get a pic.  As it was, I was content to hear it.  Guess it was on the day shift.

Thursday, I was lucky enough to have Anne and Keri for company.  We ran about 4.5 miles on the single track of the east side, then ran up Northern Loop to admire the summit.  Coming down we ran the Switch Back.  Both Anne and Keri had the 6 miles they were looking for.  I headed back across the street to get my 8.

Friday, I took my day off.  Today I met up with TMR for Blaine's Saturday group run.  The trails were just the type of Spring conditions to be avoided, so Blaine led us around the AF base.  They are the type of roads/paved trails that are good for a group.  For much of it we could pretty much own the road.  But I am hoping that the temps will dip down below freezing early enough that our OSGR will be on trails.  I do like the Animal Loop, but...