Muddy Bradley Palmer Run

We headed down to Snowman's parents place last night for the weekend, with the idea of getting over to Bradley Palmer State Park this morning for a run. The second part of the plan was to get Snowman's sister, Meghan, out on the trails for us. The only problem was that this morning dawned not clear, sunny and warm, but dreary, raw and 40 degrees. Meghan was not excited. We tried to persuade her that it would be a good for her, and would be a fun adventure. She was convinced we were trying to kill her :-) Still, we managed to get her in the car with us, and we were off.

It was cool and windy at the start as we headed down the "accessible trail" along the river. It was interesting to run this section, as the last time we were here, it was snow and ice covered! We kept the pace nice and mellow, and chatted as we ran along. We hit some of the nice single track along the river, went through the fields, and continued on around the park, stomping through some good mud puddles along the way.









Before we knew it, we had run more than 3 miles, and with Meghan feeling good, we headed back out into the park on the paved road to do one more loop.

We got back to the car the second time around with the Garmin reading 5 miles and around 57 minutes. Meghan decided to call it day, and I headed back out with Snowman on the Fat Ass course to get in a few more miles.

At 7 miles, I took a cut off back to the road and headed back to the car. I had really wanted to get in 10 miles, but 8 miles in 1:29:10 was OK too. I felt good the whole way, and it was lots of fun to be out in the woods with Snowman and Meghan!

Flora and fauna notes: Saw two Downy Woodpeckers, lots of chickadees, and a few tufted titmice and red breasted nuthatches at the feeders by the outhouse. In the swampy areas, the skunk cabbage was showing its head, and there were some cheery daffodils blooming in the grassy areas.