Dragging is Good!

Last night, while we were having dinner, Ryan just looked over at me, and said "You look, well, beat." Enough said. I was happy to go to bed last night. And although Sam woke up two times in the night, but I'm still calling it a good night because neither of us was up for  hours on end coughing. Ryan was up before dawn, suiting up for "more miles than degrees" run. Sam and I, on the other hand, were snuggled in our beds, still sleeping. I think we won out on this one :-) I did wake up feeling better and more energetic than yesterday, although the cough is still lingering...

It was back to reality today after a fun vacation together. Ryan was out the door before 8:00 to work, and Sam and I attempted to get out the door soon after. She slept in, so we were a little later to daycare than normal, but she settled in fairly quickly. I know she had a great 12 days at home with us, but she was definitely happy to be back with her friends too. As it's January, I didn't have to head up to the gallery today - we're on our reduced schedule of only being open Thursday, Friday and Saturday - but I still had work to do. I'm helping Ryan with a weekly newsletter/report project, and it means my Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be at least partially filled with work. And this week, with yesterday as our last vacation day and no work happening, there was much to do today!

In between work, and a visit to Dr. Jamie to work on my neck and a lingering tightness in my ankle, I did, however, make time to sneak out for a run. I got out the door around 10:30, into the bright sunshine. Temps had warmed up to a balmy 15 degrees, but I was still dressed as if I was headed out into the arctic air :-) Luckily, I managed to choose a good time of day to run and there was no wind. (As I was heading home from Portland in the afternoon, the wind was whipping across the highway, sending up swirls of powdery snow, so I definitely lucked out.)

And even better was that the snowmobile club had been out grooming the trails last night! It looked like they had used a dragger, as the snow had been smoothed out all across the trail. I know they did it for the snowmobilers, but man, it made for some sweet running! I still sunk in here and there where there hadn't been much traffic before the dragger, but overall, it was a nice, hard surface and fun to run on. I was feeling good, the snow was crunching beneath my feet, I was breathing in warm air thanks to my buff, and I decided to just head out on the trail for a ways and get in a decent run. I don't think I've been out past Topsham Crossing since I ran into the ROTC group back in November. I'd forgotten how nice it is to run on the powerlines when groomed. I ran out to Lover's Lane, enjoying the final short stretch that narrows and winds through the pine trees, before turning around. I finished with a nice, happy 5.25 miles and smile on my face. Now if I could just get rid of this cough completely, I think I'll be back in business...