0.8

Saturday morning, I headed out across the street for my long run. Things were a bit softer than they had been on Friday morning but were still decent. Plus, it was about 20 degrees warmer and it was a bright sunshiney morning, so I can't complain too much!

I ran out and looped a few times on the mountain bike trails around the dump pond before making my way back toward home. But alas, I still needed more miles so I headed up Mt. Ararat. The road had been plowed so it was a decent surface but once I hit the top, the trail hadn't had enough traffic and was way too soft, so I turned around and headed back out to Highland Green Road. Ran up the road and then made my way along the far side of the Heath. There had been some traffic on the trail but not enough to make it enjoyable, so I popped back out on the road and headed back that way. Once again, a run with multiple spikes on/spikes off transitions 😂😁 Temperatures had warmed up significantly while I was out there, so it was pretty soft on the final powerline stretch and I didn't even bother to put on my spikes.  (20.0 miles)

After lunch, Sam and I headed up to meet up with Keri, Tyler, the girls and their friends Liv and Mark at Odd Alewives Brewery. Sadly, Ryan did not join us, as he was feeling rather under the weather from some sort of cold. I felt badly leaving him, but he encourages us to go and have fun, and Sam really did no want to miss out on the opportunity for a sleepover with the girls, so off we went. In the end, it was probably nice for him to have some quiet time to just veg and rest up!! Sorry to not have him with us for the fun, but we had a nice evening with the girls playing, some beer tasting and delicious pizza. Thanks for hosting, Keri and Tyler!

Of course, we got to bed way too late, especially considering the time change and how early we had to get up to get ready and out the door to HVNC for the annual Bad Idea Fat Ass. As we were drinking our coffee, the sun was rising and putting on a fabulous color display off their back deck. Glorious!

We managed to get to HVNC on time, but others trickled in slowly and we didn't get started until just before 9:30. Guess everyone was dragging on their way to this bad idea 😆😉 Some of us went out in microspikes while others stuck to their snowshoes. I haven't put on my snowshoes all season so really didn't want to start today! Ha!

The loop was a mix of rather soft groomed stuff and some well-packed trail. It was doable in either/or, I'd say so I was fine with my choice. We started off bunched up but spread out fairly quickly and I enjoyed running the first two loops with Anne N., chatting away as we ran along. Felt fairly solid, especially considering yesterday's miles and the variable conditions. Still a whole lot of snow up there in the woods, that's for sure!!

After the second loop, I stopped for the outhouse and then went back inside to barn to eat a few donut holes too 😋🍩 before Anne and I headed back up, this time with Keri and Emily in tow. The third loop seemed laughably much more difficult, with conditions rapidly deteriorating into a loose sugary mess. I was definitely feeling the time on my feet and the extra work required due to conditions in the final lap as we slipped and slid around, laughing and groaning, but no matter, we got it done! I added on a short extra bit at the end to get my watch to read 10.0 and then happily made my way inside to eat all.the.things! Nothing like multiple crock pots full of warm food goodness at the end of a run with friends! What a bad, fun idea 😊 (10.0 miles)

In the end, it appears I should have run an extra 0.8 miles somewhere this week so I could have gotten a nice round 50 miles this week, but ah well, I guess 49.2 will just have to do! 😂😀