Fun Weekend Up North

Friday afternoon after picking Sam up at school, we headed north to visit Jamie and Kate for the weekend. After two failed attempts to get up there to stay with them, we finally had a weekend where no one got sick :) and it worked out. Guess third time's a charm!

They live in a lovely farmhouse in Amherst, right on the main road, but frankly, it's really in the middle of nowhere ;) just how they wanted it!

We had dinner and then headed over to Airline Brewery for a few drinks and a few games of darts. Lots of fun, but none of us except Jamie is very good at darts! ;)

Darts!

Kate had very nicely offered to hang with Sam for the morning while Ryan, Jamie and I got in a long run on Saturday, so after a breakfast of banana bread and the requisite coffee, we drove even farther north to run on the ITS snowmobile trails nearby. It worked out really well, as we had an awesome run on this amazing veritable highway of a snowmobile trail that meandered through beautiful forests, over flowing rivers, traversed across wide open blueberry fields and ran up and on out into the landscape for miles and miles, while Sam and Kate kept busy at the house, playing games, planting pepper plants, boiling sap for maple syrup, collecting chicken eggs and visiting Zippy over at John's house.

Seriously, a highway!

Crossing the Narraguagus River

Blueberry fields forever...

Fun on the trails in the middle of nowhere with these two ;)

Beautiful sundog as we crossed the blueberry fields

It went on for miles and miles like this

Beautiful day to be out

Tributary flowing into the Narraguagus

It was a great run and a real treat to run with Jamie and Ryan and to explore a new trail. The trail was  well packed and nice and solid for the most part. We did run into a fair number of snowmobilers who churned up the trail a bit, but still it was the best winter trail running conditions of the season for me for sure! I will admit that I was feeling it as we neared the halfway point, but rebounded after we stopped for a quick snack until the final few miles, which felt like a definite slog as the temps warmed up and the sun beat down and the snow became very soft and mashed potato-esque. But nothing to do but chug along and get it done :) I had hoped to get in a slightly longer long run this weekend but in the end, we were keeping up a good running pace, even if we were making a lot of stops to ooohhh and ahhh along the way, and after 10 miles on Friday, the miles we did get in were more than enough. So, truly, all in all, it was an awesome morning of running with good company, fun trails and great exploration! Can't ask for anything more! (17.0 miles)

We met up with Kate and Sam at a local diner for lunch and big slices of pie (yum!) and then headed back home to relax for the afternoon.

Relaxing in front of the fire

Feeding the chickens

Collected a few more eggs

This morning, we were trying to juggle everyone getting in their runs, especially Kate, so I headed out on first shift around 7:30 am to run on the local roads near their house. After a mile of pavement down to the river, I took River Road, which (duhhh!!) followed the river and then headed up into the woods. The road was a mix of frozen mud, ice, ice chunks and snow, but despite the variable conditions, with colder temps, it was good running. I actually felt pretty good and went a bit farther than originally planned before turning around. (8.0 miles)

River Road out to the middle of nowhere

Happy to finish up the week with 47.5 miles and almost 8 hours of training, which caps off a solid three week block for me, and more than happy to have had it work out for us to spend the weekend with friends!!