A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Tuesday morning, I got up early to do my strength/stretching routine and then drove over to the Cathance for a snowshoe run. I had seen on Strava that Bill had been out snowshoeing on Sunday afternoon and he said it was worth it! I didn't want to run roads again, so I figured, what the heck :) I hadn't been out on the trails since last week's snow and I've hardly used my snowshoes this season, so it seemed fitting that on the second day of spring, I was snowshoeing out on the trails! Things were pretty well packed, although with the requisite postholes and unevenness that comes from warm weather and people barebooting out on the trails, and the snow was a bit of an odd texture - crunchy yet styrofoamy underfoot. - due to the variable temps the past few days. Weird. Still, it was a beautiful morning and it was fun to run out along the river as always! Got in 4 miles for a good early Tuesday morning trail adventure.

Wednesday morning, I slept in a bit later than I should have given that I was trying to get into work early but I decided to still run what I had planned. Put on my road shoes and headed out around 6:15 am. Wore my headlamp for the first 5 minutes until I'd turned off the main road and onto the pedestrian/bike path along the Connector and the enjoyed the fact that the days are getting longer and longer! Ran the 6 mile Highland Green loop, complete with a pretty pastel sunrise seen along the backside of the loop. A bit of ice along the way and a bit of a frozen mud mess on the back dirt road, but I was happy to keep the pace "snappy" (or as snappy as I get these days ;0).

After I got into work on Wednesday a crazy little snowquall moved through and brought in some cold air and wind. Which meant that Thursday morning, instead of being greeted with 25 degrees like the morning prior, it was only 12 degrees with a feel like temp of 1. Oh March, you fickle month, you. Brrr. Bundled up and headed across the street to run along the snowmobile trails with my Hillsounds. Unfortunately, there had been too much bareboot traffic in warm weather and hadn't been quite enough snowmobile traffic to make the surface a good one for running. It was a bit too uneven in most spots, not quite packed enough in some spots, but then icy or bare in others. Ah well, I was planning on keeping the pace very mellow today anyway but I felt like conditions made the effort a bit too much work footing-wise. Still, a decent 6 miles out and back, with thankfully only the final two miles into the wind.

This morning, I met up with Mindy and Val at the Brad for a run on the Snowmobile Trail there. Much nicer than yesterday's snowmobile trail run around home! Very well packed with good solid conditions. Of course in keeping with March's temperature and weather swings, we were met with a snowquall out in the corn fields. What the heck? We had a nice mellow run chatting away and enjoying the good conditions. And we saw an ermine too! Defnitely an ermine as the end of the tail was a solid black, while the rest of the body was white with some darker color mixing in - I assume because of the time of year. Very neat! A lovely 8 miles followed with Edna & Lucy's for lunch. Yum!

And so it goes, a little bit of this, a little bit of that ;)