After all the beautiful snow last week, we ended up with a lot of rain and temps in 50s early this week. Tuesday morning's run was warm, way too warm for early December at 5:30 am, and there was hardly any snow left. Crazy how quickly it melted away. (6.0 miles)
Wednesday featured Sam's winter concert, her last at Woodside. Time truly does fly! She wore one of the dresses Meg gave her and looked fantastic! The kids all did a great job with the songs, and this year, Sam was part of the sword dance, which was fun too!
Sword dance!
🌟
It was a late night, but I got up and out early for a run on the cart paths anyway. The full moon shone brightly above, and although conditions were a bit funky, it was mostly frozen gravel with a lot of little ice slicks that were easy to avoid. (6.0 miles)
Moonset
Sunrise
Later in the evening, as I was getting out the containers that hold the gels in prep for Friday's long run, I turned around and found this 😹 Silly Gigi!
I fits, I sits 😸
Of course, then Friday morning rolled around and Sam wasn't feeling well and I had to go into work briefly to get something sorted out and the long run went out the window. Ryan encouraged me to still head over to Bradbury to meet up with Keri and Val as planned, though, and it was good to get in a nice run with friends after a bit of a stressful morning! Keri and I got in a few miles on the east side and then looped back to meet up with Val, after which we headed out to Tryon quarry. The trails featured a lot of hoar frost and some ice slicks under the leaves, but overall conditions were fairly decent. Fun to catch up with the ladies and a really beautiful morning too. (8.2 miles)
Val was the only one brave enough to get out on the ice!
Rain started up late in the evening on Friday and by Saturday morning, it was really coming down. The forecast was for rain all day, so I figured there was no use in trying to wait around. I would just go and get it over with. Once it got light out, I suited up and headed out into the deluge. I'll admit that it was fairly terrible out, and SO MUCH WATER! Crazy. The streets and sidewalks had turned into literal rivers. It was nice and windy too, with the only saving grace being that it was 48 degrees out and not 35! Ended up soaked and able to wring water out of every stitch of clothing I had on. Yay running 😆💦💨💧(6.0 miles)
With the rain pouring down all day long, we spent the rest of the day wrapping Christmas presents and watching episode 7 of Star Wars in preparation for seeing the new and final episode 9 over vacation. A good inside day!
Gigi thought we got all this out for her!
Helping 😻😹
Sunday morning meant time for the long run that I hadn't gotten in Friday or Saturday, but the wind was whipping outside and I was lacking motivation. I sat downstairs enjoying the quiet for a while and finally got myself out the door once Sam had woken up, a little after 8:00 am. I headed onto the cart paths, which were very squishy, and then out into the Cathance. I knew from looking out back that we had gotten a lot of rain but I was really surprised at how flooded the river was. I don't think I've ever seen it this flooded! Crazy. Lots of creative bushwacking required, with a few "gotta go through it!" moments required! Brr, mid-December river water is cold!
There should be a small bog bridge here... I couldn't even see it in the water.
Hmmm, not quite working....
So much water!
The trail should run through the middle of this photo...
Mega flooding
Beautiful
Rushing
Head of Tides dam
Needless to say it was slow going! Really cool to see the power of the water though. I ran out to Head of Tides and then came back the high route. Amazingly, despite all the rain, the trails on the high ground were fairly dry and in good shape. Weird.
Back around the Heath and onto the rest of the cart paths, where on the road in between holes 8 and 9, I heard a yell and found Ryan sprinting after me. Ha! I guess he'd seen me on the phone tracker and had been trying to catch me for a few miles 😂😁 It was nice to have him join me for the final 8 miles of my run! We ran the cart paths again and meandered down to the river so he could experience the flooding and then tacked on a bit by running on the powerlines which were a muddy, mucky, windy mess.
I probably didn't pick the best day or route to finally get in my 20 mile run, but I was determined to make it happen! Only took 6 months to get back to a 20 miler after WSer 😆😉 Legs definitely felt tired by the end, but happy to have gotten it done! (20.0 miles)
While we were running, Sam was over at Emma's house building a graham cracker gingerbread house and making Christmas ornaments. What fun!
After she got back, she and Ryan headed out to finish up the Christmas shopping while I got a few errands done, dealt with the pile of laundry and cleaned the house. Nothing like life after a long run to make for good ultra training! By the end of the day my watch said I got 48,000 steps! Whew.
We capped off a good day with dinner at Sam's favorite restaurant - when Ryan asked her where she wanted to eat, she said, that isn't even a question when you ask me! Ha! So Japanese it was! 😄🍣🍤🍤🍚Always fun!
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