Over These Green Hills...

"Over these green hills, blue electric sky
Always in my blood, forever in my eyes...

...Once again, we'll breathe in the view
It's part of me, part of you

 And it has to be clear
It has to be clear, inside my head"

-Part of Me, Part of You, the Finn Brothers

This song came on Pandora as I was driving over to Bradbury this morning. And if you know me, you know running is part this:

Courtesy: The Oatmeal

And part this:

Green hills, blue sky. Oh, and today, also icy rocks ;)

I run for my sanity, for my health, to escape, to explore, to breathe in the air and listen to the birds, to watch the sun rise, to feel suffering and joy, and because aside from my family and friends nothing makes me happier than being out in the woods running. 

So with the Finn Brother lyrics ringing in my head, I ran up to the summit this morning, and stopped and basked in the sun for a few minutes while taking in the view before heading back down and across the street to explore the east side. The fat tire bikers have packed down the singletrack amazingly well and there was some fine screwshoe running to be had. 

Winter light

Of course, there was also frozen mud, ice, and several open water streams and puddles to manuever around. I ran the Bruiser (minus the Island) up to the snowmobile trail and then came down that. The snowmobile trail was a bit bony, with a wide mix of packed snow, long stretches of ice plus some frozen mud and frozen waterways.. 

Variable to say the least

I came up the Knights Wood Trail and there was even a frozen waterfall for a trail in one section! All in all, I'd call it early season screwshoe conditions, even if it is January, but a fine way to spend an hour+ on a Friday morning! 

Because I was running by myself, I decided to be dorky and wear both the Garmin and the Suunto to compare while on the run. A few observations: The Garmin, while much bulkier, is much easier to read with a larger screen. The Suunto's face is much smaller, but the watch itself is more comfortable. The Garmin beeps are much louder. Not sure that is a good thing or not. The Suunto nicely uploaded my run to Strava in the car - hurray! The Suunto logged 0.08 less mileage over the 6.4 mile run. Perhaps it is more accurate? Need to figure out if I can use the interval timer as an "alarm" for my "eat something every 1/2 hour" reminder, which is something I find really useful to have on the Garmin on long runs and during long races. A work in progress, but warming up to it.

Yes, I have my hood up! It was chilly out there :)