What's Next?: Weekday Wanderings

Friday, March 3, 2017

Weekday Wanderings

Tuesday morning, it was cold enough to don my microspikes and hit the snowmobile trails out to Lover's Lane. After all the warm weather, the conditions were variable, from bare ground to ice to packed snow to a bit of soft stuff here and there, but overall, quite solid considering the wacky weather we've had recently. It was a nice, calm morning to be out and I was treated to a lovely sunrise. A good 5 miles for the morning, for sure!

Sunrise along the powerlines

Morning light

Thursday morning dawned mild and overcast, and I ran Highland Green via the new bike path for a rather blustery 6 miles. No stunning sunrise but the light on the clouds was pretty as I ran along. I ran the loop backwards for a change of pace and the back dirt road was quite sloppy, but overall a good run to start the day.

Today, I met up with Val and Keri at the Brad for an attempt at the Beautiful Loop. I was a bit skeptical that we'd be able to do the full loop when Val suggested it, but I was more than willing to give it a go, as a good long trail run with friends is way better than a solo road loop, which is what I had been thinking I'd end up doing! Turns out, with overnight temps in the 20s, things had hardened up just enough that it was totally doable. There was a fair amount of open water, undermined sections and a bit of tiptoeing to be sure, and we did do some bushwacking around the river and a small stream/swampy area near the power plant, but really, it was better than I though it would be. Some bare patches and lots of ice but plenty of hard-pack runnable snowmobile trail. It was a great run with friends, and good to get out on the BL this year. Ryan ran out the opposite way to finish up his long run and join us for the final few miles, so that was fun too.

Of course, to keep things interesting we had wind and sunshine and when we were bushwacking through the juniper bushes near the river, we found an unidentified pterydactyl type object (!), there were beautiful big red cranberries spotted encased in the ice along the powerlines and we were treated to a sighting of six bluebirds in the fields out near Lawrence Road, so all in all, a pretty good Beautiful Loop! 15.3 miles for the day :)