First Day of Spring

It's the first day of spring, and what was I out doing this morning? Snowshoeing through 6" of untracked snow! Wacky weather! I had rather happily stored away my snowshoes in the loft after the last snowshoe race, and honestly, I thought about bailing on the snowshoe and just heading over to the bike path for my planned 10 miler, but that seemed sort of lame, so with a bit of a sigh, I got my snowshoes and headed across the street instead. Not a soul had been out - the trails are closed to snowmobilers and ATVs at this time of year, and no one had even been out walking, so the pristine white snow was all mine. I would have been happy to have followed in someone's tracks, but guess not!

I ran through the woods and onto the golf course, slowly, slowly kicking my way through the snow. Across the street and onto the trail around the Heath, where the woods were stunningly beautiful. The snow sparkled in the sunlight and the trees were laden with a few inches of white frosting. I crossed a lot of snowshoe hare tracks, and followed the tracks of something that was walking like a feline, in a straight line with the hind paw landing in the front paw's print. The snow was heavier than I would have suspected and the snow was seriously clumping on my cleats and piling up on the back of my snowshoes, making running even more burdensome and causing me to make a good many stops to kick it off so that I could run in a normal manner. I got in 4.35 miles in 1:04 and called it a day. It was a tough workout for sure, and hopefully good strength training for TARC! I'll be happy when the snow melts, but really, it was gorgeous out there this morning.

Happy Spring, everyone :-)