Spring in NC

Busy day of travel and vacation fun yesterday. We were up well before the crack of dawn, but as usual Sam is a great traveler and it is always well worth it once we arrive in Raleigh! Yay vacation!

Morning view

Happy traveler

Great travel book, and so excited to see our friends, John and others, name's in print!

We arrived to find spring had sprung, and although it only in the 50s, it felt warm to us! As is our tradition, we stopped at Pullen Park for a picnic and some playtime. Such a fun spot!

Spring

Colors

Just so lovely after a winter of white!

Taking a train ride

Carousel ride

Fun on the playground equipment

Getting so big!

Despite getting up at 4:00 am, Sam still wanted to go to the pool when we arrived at Mom and Dad's house, so while they took the golf cart up there and Ryan and I got is short run to shake out our legs after a morning of travel. Both of us felt really creaky in the first mile, but thankfully the legs loosened up along the way. It was a really pleasant afternoon, and we enjoyed running along the berm. Saw a muskrat, three cormorants, a great egret, one great blue heron, lots of turtles and a few really big carp. (4.1 miles)

We arrived at the pool just in time to see Sam racing outside and jumping into the outdoor pool, which was by no means warm! Silly Maine kid ;) She only managed a few jumps with much laughter and yelps before she went back inside to swim in the indoor pool, but I have to give her credit!

Brrr! That water is cold!

But I still am going to jump in!

Maine kid in NC - has the whole pool to herself ;)

In

In

Splash!

Brrr! Gotta get out :) ha ha!

We had a nice dinner at home and were all in bed and asleep by 8:30 pm. A good start to vacation!

Striped Sky

A chilly run this morning, only 28 degrees, but a glorious sunrise with colored stripes aglow across the sky. Also, I only had to wear my headlamp for the first two miles. Hurray for extra morning light! (6.0 miles)

Rounding Out the Week

In keeping with this week's lack of early morning running, I did not get up early enough to get in my run on Sunday morning before Ryan headed down to Blackstrap for Mike's Blackstrap Barkley run. So I headed out a little after 3:00 pm once he'd returned home from what sounded like a fun, briar- and mud-ridden run through the forest, collecting book pages. Ah, us wacky runners ;)

I headed up and over Mt. A. with the thought of running the cart paths, but there were enough cars in the parking lot to give me pause. Could people be out playing golf already? It was not that warm out. And it was windy! But who knows? So, instead I ran up Highland Green Road to the ecology center lot, where I did a lollypop down to the river and back before continuing on the road loop. Added a bit extra around the high school to even things out and get the mileage to 50 for the week. (7.0 miles)

No running photos to share, but just for giggles, here's the projected temps for tomorrow morning, ie my last run at home before vacation...

... and here is the projected temps for Saturday for our 6 hour race near Raleigh. Nothing like a 50 degree swing in temps to keep things interesting! 😂😂

Saturday Morning Meander

I simply wasn't feeling it this morning. It's not unusual for me to have a few "down" feeling weeks through a training cycle though, but I feel like the weather this spring hasn't been helping much. Last night when we picked Sam up at Amber's to go to Dick's to pick out new flipflops, it was snowing. And it kept snowing. And there was 2" to 3" solid wet inches of snow on the ground this morning. Gah. I know that just because April hits, it doesn't automatically become all bright and green and warm. But this year, it seems like winter simply won't release its grip as it's been quite cold and windy, and man, it's just getting a bit old! I've always suspected that weather plays a big role in how I'm feeling and boy, it's been rough this week.

But, all that aside, there was mileage to be done, so that is what I did. Oh, I took my time eating breakfast and drinking coffee and hoping for the skies to clear, but it was rather dreary as I headed out the door, which pretty much matched my mood. I didn't feel like the road loop I'd put together on a windy, puddly, slushy, dreary morning so instead I simply wandered. I ran the Canam loop then up over Mt. A. to the cart paths, and into the Cathance. The snow was wet and soft and actually made the ice beneath a bit less of an issue than it had been yesterday, and while I had to tiptoe in some places for sure, but overall, it was decent, if messy. I followed some turkey tracks along the river, ran into two other runners, listened and watched the roaring river, and slipped and slid along. With conditions such as they were, time and pace were out the window and so I just ran comfortably, trying to just enjoy it.

I will admit I had my earbuds in the whole run, listening to several podcasts I had saved up and wanted to listen to, one of which was UltrarunnerPodcast's interview with Brendan from Semi-Rad, another Mario's Morning Shakeout interview with Meb. Meb has such a great story and is just such a good person, it was fun to listen to him, and I was simply laughing out loud through the Semi-Rad podcast. So good. I've really enjoyed running some with the earbuds this winter as a way to listen to some interesting interviews I normally just wouldn't get a chance/have time to listen in on. And while typically, I wouldn't run on the trails with earbuds, today I just needed the extra distraction to keep me moving. Some days, you just have to do whatever it takes ;)

I was having enough fun out on the trails that I decided to go all the way out to Head of Tides, which I hadn't been to in a while. I stopped out there for a bit to eat a snack and watch an osprey fly overhead (first of the season!, so maybe spring really IS going to arrive ;)) before heading back. By that time, the sun had come out and things were getting pretty mushy out there so I didn't prolong my miles in the Cathance but headed back to finish up the cart path loop. Had eight deer run across the fairway and path into the woods in front of me along hole #8, which was a neat sight.

Still more miles to be done, so I looped up and around Highland Green, down to Tedford Rd and up the powerlines, across the street to the Highlands and then a short loop around the high school to even things out ;) Finished up with 20 on the dot. Maybe not the most inspired but it was done and sometimes that just has to do. (20.0 miles)

Midweek Blahs

For some reason, I've had a really tough time with early mornings this week. Work has been busy, I've been feeling a bit stressed and tired, and as a result, I only managed one early morning run this week. Sometimes the extra sleep just seems more important!

Tuesday morning I did get up and out in the darkness for a run. I decided to run the cart paths and Heath and was pleasantly surprised to find the cart paths about 90% clear and the Heath in decent condition with only about 30% snow/ice cover. What snow there was was tacky enough that no extra traction was needed on a rather crisp morning. Saw one deer, two mallards and a lovely glow from the sun rising as I was coming back along the powerlines. (7.0 miles)

Wednesday, I managed to stop my alarm and go back to sleep for an 1 1/2 instead of getting up to run. Oops. But it was cold and rainy and dark, and I really didn't want to anyway 😁 But I did want another solid week, so instead I left work a little early and came home and went out for a run in the rain and the cold, but at least it wasn't dark 😆 Not much more to say about that. (6.0 miles)

Thursday morning was another repeat of Wednesday but with no weather excuse so I just chalked it up to my body needing a day off. Which takes us to this morning when I was originally planning to get up early and out to run 20+ road miles before my massage with Lauren at 11:30 (I know, rough life!). But then I got to thinking, why am I rushing out to get this done and feeling stressed about getting back on time. I can run my long run Saturday morning when we have nothing other than some house chores on the schedule, and run shorter today. So I slept in a bit later and that is what I did 😉 Seriously, this is what Ryan means by uncoachable... 😂😂

I headed out around 7:45 am across the street. It was cold and windy (I see a theme here...winter just does not want to give up!) but sunny at least! I ran the cart paths and then headed onto the Heath between holes 5 & 6. The Heath has melted even more since earlier this week but there was a fair amount of water covered with a thin sheath of ice from the rain on Wednesday that made things interesting. I headed across the street down to the river where I found the trail along the river's edge basically a solid sheet of glare ice. Definitely a no go. I did get to see some lovely ice pancakes before I turned around though! So pretty and a surprise, since I wasn't expecting to see any more this season!

The remainder of the run was on the cart paths, a bit of powerlines (sketchy!) and roads to round things out. Felt good with my choice to swap my runs around and get out into the sunshine this morning! (10.0 miles)

Easter Weekend Fun and Running

We spent the weekend down at Ryan's parents house with his sister, brother-in-law and their two kiddos. It is always a bit crazy when we all get together but we always have fun! This weekend was no exception :)

Things got a little crazy in the living room on Friday night with the boys playing, so Sam took a break in the kitchen to read ;)

The Easter Bunny was set to arrive a day early due to travel schedules, so before bed on Friday, the kids wrote him a note and left out some snacks :)

Letter to the Easter Bunny - so cute!

In classic Danielle style, I neglected to bring Sam's easter basket, as I knew Irene had bought baskets for all the kids. Of course, Meghan brought the boys HUGE baskets and stuck everything inside. Sam was left with an adorable basket from Irene and all our little extras in a brown paper bag :) Can you say ghetto? 😂😂

Needless to say, everyone was excited for Easter, so we were up early for egg hunting and a big breakfast.

Egg hunting!

Eggs collected :)

Reading to Cam 💕

Then to get out some energy, we headed out into the sunshine for some running and scooting around the block!

Scooting!

Still some big snowbanks but otherwise, a beautiful spring day!

Having fun

Focused :)

While the kids were occupied with lunch, Ryan and I headed out for a run. It was a beautiful blue sky day, if a bit breezy, and we enjoyed a nice road road out through the marshes. I was super excited to hear peepers in the swampy areas along the roadways and to see a patch of snowdrops blooming in the woods. Spring!!! 🌷🌷 (7.1 miles)

High tide in the Newburyport marshes

 We capped off the day with dinner out at Agave. Yum!

Margherita for the win :)

Cousins 💗

This morning, Ryan and I headed over to Bradley Palmer for a trail run. We had expected to find snow on the trails, so had on our screwshoes. We found almost no snow, and very little mud. Pretty much dry ground everywhere. Ahhh. That was really nice.

Dry trails!

However, I will admit that my stomach was not feeling great due to last night's mexican food, and I was also sort of cranky to find that pretty much everywhere except the meadow was covered in blowdowns and debris. I mean, everywhere. I have never seen such debris on these trails before. It was insane. 

Pretty much the view for most of today's run. Lots of blowdowns and me struggling to keep up 😁😁

Yup, it was bad...

It was bad enough that we crossed the river and headed over into Willowdale to see if it was any better over there. Of course, it was not 😂, especially on the double-track old carriage roads, although it did seem that some of the singletrack might have been cleared by the bikers, so that was nice. Still, there was a lot of stopping and walking over and around things. And the crazy amount of trees down got us a bit confused a few times, which did mean that we ran some new to us singletrack and managed to come out on a golf course we never knew existed 😄 I'm totally not calling it an ideal trail run, however, it was a really nice morning and it was great to run with Ryan and to be on trails that were not snow and ice covered. Spring had not quite arrived in most of the woods yet, but there were still pretty views to be had...

Along the pond

...and we did find some greenery and skunk cabbage coming up along the streams. 

Things are greening!

We spotted this big old toad and a woodcock. Other than that the woods were quiet.

Willowdale running

In the end, even on a day where I might not be feeling my best, I'm still grateful to get to be out running in the woods for a few hours on a Sunday morning with my best friend 💗 (13.0 miles)

And I'm very happy to finish up March with a solid month of running, and 530.6 miles for the first three months of the year. It feels good to have been able to consistently put in decent time and miles through the winter months and I'm looking forward to keeping it up as we head into spring!