Sunday, February 22, 2009

Running at Bradbury

We met up with Ian and Jim to run at Bradbury this morning. Neither Snowman or I was feeling super energized, but the plan called for 10 miles, so there we were. With none of us having any concrete ideas of a specific route to be run, we ended up taking off onto the east side snowmobile trails. Jim and Ian set off at a blazing pace (or at least that's what it felt like to me!), and Snowman and I settled in at a slightly slower pace several feet behind.

It was a nice morning with no wind and overcast skies. The trails had been packed by snowmobiles, but the snow was still pretty loose and soft, and I felt myself working pretty hard on the first stretch of uphill trail. We reached the edge of the park a little before 2 miles, and then meandered downhill. The furthest I've gone on these trails is around 3 miles, so I got to see a few new miles of trail as we continued on through some fields and out to the large powerlines.

There we took a short break and waited for a few snowmobiles to pass us by. What do they think of us out there running along in our tights on the trails? As we made our way back, Jim dropped back to join me and Ian and Snowman drew away. Jim kept me amused the rest of the way with stories about cycling, motorcycle riding, Tang, beer and maple syrup, and his energy pulled me along back to the parking lot. We ended the run with 9.7 miles in 1:41:36. Close enough to 10 for me!

Ian nicely shared some yummy peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies after the run, and we hung out in the parking lot chatting and enjoying the warmer weather. Temps had risen over 20 degrees since the start of the run!

A few more photos here.

Almost forgot to note, both Snowman and I tried out our new Nathan packs today. Overkill on a run like this, but good to try them out. Mine was super comfortable and didn't move or rub at all. Nice! Definitely looking forward to trying it out on other longer runs.

2 comments:

Jamie Anderson said...

Great job! Great pace on soft trails. Glad you found a pack that works well.

Sparkplug said...

Thanks Jamie! I definitely had to work a bit, but I guess that's good.
Glad to see it looks like you're doing well with your running. That is definitely good news. See you next weekend at the Fat Ass?