Snow, Ice and Friends at the Brad

I emailed Mindy and Valerie to see if they were planning to run at the Brad this morning. I figured they were - I mean, Mindy and Val without the Brad? Sacrilege! :-) - but wanted to doublecheck. Turns out they were planning to meet at 8:00 instead of 9:00, which was fine with me. Sam is up at the crack of dawn, so getting out the door early isn't an issue here. The only issue this morning was the light layer of ice atop the thin layer of snow that had fallen yesterday. The roads were a bit slick and it was slow going. I still arrived in plenty of time, and Mindy, Val and Rick arrived in short order. As we were donning our Garmins and packs, the clouds and fog hung low above our heads and a cold rain started to fall. Snow and ice is fine, but rain on top of it was a bit much! Brrr. 

We quickly headed across the street to the east side, hoping to warm up quickly! Val led the way, and we all gingerly stepped and jumped along the trail, the snow and ice crunching underfoot. It was a bit slick in spots but there was luckily fairly decent traction in most areas. None of us had on screwshoes, so we took it easy pacewise - no one wanted to have their first winter spill! We got in almost 5 miles before heading back to the parking lot in the hopes of meeting up with Xar. But alas, she was running late due to the nasty road conditions, so we took back off for the east side for another loop. This time, Val led us out onto the BBU course loop, which took us on a few trails I honestly don't think I've ever been on before! We weaved our way through the woods, chatting away and marveling at all the animal tracks - tiny, tiny deer prints, mouse prints, lots of rabbit prints, dog and human prints, cat prints (?!) and some normal size deer prints too. I do love this time of year for the tracking opportunities! So fun to be able to actually tell what animals have been wandering through the woods and along the same trails we are traveling!

I headed back a little earlier than the rest, knowing I had Ryan at home with Sam all morning, and him not feeling great (winter cold) at that. I veered off when our path crossed the snowmobile trail at the junction of Fox East, and headed in on the Snowmobile Trail, with my Garmin beeped 8 miles just before I crossed the road. It was great to catch up with Val, Rick and Mindy! It has been way too long since I've been able to get in a Sunday morning TMR run, and it was a lot of fun! Thanks guys :-) The perfect way to spend a dreary, cold early December Sunday morning! :-)