Saturday, December 15, 2018

Busy Busy

Lots going on this time of year! The end of the year is always crazy at work, Sam had her winter concert on Wednesday, there are Christmas presents to buy and presents to wrap, not to mention just the regular stuff that keeps us busy enough as it is! Makes the running even more necessary 😉

Of course, despite the fact that I left work with many things still on my to-do list, I snuck out early on Tuesday to get in a run before swim lessons. These dark cold mornings with sketchy conditions just aren't quite as motivating 😁 Donned my screwshoes and ran down to the river and back. Variable conditions with a fair amount of ice but there were some neat ice pancakes encased in the ice along the river banks and the temperature was mild. Nice to run in the daylight! (5.3 miles)

Wednesday morning's run didn't happen either. Sigh. Then it was a full day of work followed up with Sam's winter concert that night. Irene and Dana came up and brought us pizza for dinner and then joined us for the concert, which was really nice. Sam sang with both the Maine Refrain group and the regular chorus, and the kids really did a great job! It was adorable to see her up there with her friends singing their hearts out. Oh, and twittering away with each other in between songs 😀


Thursday morning, I finally got myself up and out of bed for a pre-dawn run. Ran out and back on Highland Green Road. Temps were in the single digits, but there was no wind and the roads were clear of ice, which was nice. On the return trip, there was a light glow along the horizon and Venus was shining brightly up above. (5.0 miles)


Friday morning, I got all the in-town errands out of the way early before the stores got crowded and then finally headed out for a run around 10:30 am. By then, I was feeling a little meh in terms of motivation but it was a nice morning so I headed out into the Cathance to just enough being in the woods. The trails were slow going with conditions as one might expect at this time of year given the wide range of temperatures we've had over the past few weeks, alternating between hoar frost, ribbons of ice, bare ground and packed snow, but the ice formations along the river were beautiful. Saw one deer and no one on the trails. (7.0 miles)





This morning I met up with Emma for a run at Brad. It was practically balmy when we set out at 7:00 am! We chatted as we ran, catching up on the past month and talking about 2019 plans. Conditions were extremely variable, with a ton of hoar frost and lots of sinkholes hidden beneath the leaves, wide ribbons of ice, some packed snow and a good amount of bare ground. We ran out to the Connector, enjoying the early morning light at Coyote Corner, and then looped around on the new Royal River trails back to the park. The boundary trail up to the summit was a bit sketchy but the view from the summit was so pretty. Love the light at this time of the year! Always great to run with Emma, and the perfect start to the day! (10.0 miles)






No comments: