Late March

Got out for an afternoon walk around the block with the kiddo on Monday to wrap up the day. Boy, was that wind chilly! (1.7 miles walked)

As usual (sigh...), neglected to actually get up and out on Tuesday morning so got in an afternoon run on the cart paths instead. The cart paths are drying up nicely, but wow, the wind was whipping! (6.0 miles)

Sunrise is slowly getting earlier again. Hurray! Headed out on Wednesday morning as the sky was lightening and ran a road loop across the two Androscoggin bridges. Pretty sky as I was crossing the connector bridge and roaring water underneath the green bridge. A beautiful, cool, calm morning. One eagle in "the" pine tree. (6.3 miles)

Such a pretty view!

Rained most of the day on Thursday, so a well-timed day off!

Couldn't resist trying out the powerlines on Friday morning after dropping Sam at school. It was a bit overcast and damp, and with the melting snow and ice, and the rain from the prior day, things were pretty sloppy with a lot of puddles and a lot of mudholes. Felt a bit flat, but it was nice to be able to get back out on the powerlines! (10.0 miles)

They are very curious critters

Ryan headed over to NH for a boy's weekend and to ski on Saturday with Peyron, so it was just Sam and I for the weekend. It turned into a really nice afternoon on Friday so we joined Mom and Dad for a walk down to the swinging bridge and then for a homemade pizza dinner. 😋🍕(1.5 miles walked)

Frosty's opened back up after a 4 month hiatus on Friday, so Saturday morning I snuck quietly out the door while Sam was still sleeping, right at 7:00 am, to join in the line to get a box of donuts to bring home. Then I headed over to the Commons for a run. It was a beautifully bright and crisp morning, and the trails were reasonably dry and almost entirely clear of snow/ice. Ran out into Coleman Farm to admire the salt marsh view and found some nice skunk cabbage emerging down in one of the side ravines. Always a nice early sign of spring! Looped back on the Landing trail to finish things up. (9.0 miles) 

Signs of spring 

So good! 😍🍩

After lunch, Mom and Dad picked us up for a southern adventure down to Spring Point Ledge Light in South Portland. A fun, if windy, exploration along the beach, out along the breakwater to the light itself and along the fort. (1.4 miles walked)

The Light

Always good to get a smile from my girl 💗

So windy!

Sam is smiling through the fort "window" but it's hard to see!

We stopped to pick up some treats at Sun Market, and then got thai food at Orchid Thai for dinner. Yum! Thanks for a fun afternoon, Mom and Dad! 💗

This morning, I wasn't in a rush to get out, finally getting out the door a little bit before 8:30 for a run on the roads. Crisp and bright. No eagles seen or anything else of too much excitement, just chugging along to wrap up the running week. (10.0 miles)

Then once Ryan got home in the early afternoon, we all headed across the street for a family walk around the block to catch up. A good way to wrap up the weekend! (1.7 miles walked)

Spring

Busy day on Monday, but with daylight savings, there is a lot of late afternoon light, so we got out for a family walk around the block before dinner. With Sam on swim hiatus, we figure a few walks are probably a good thing to get her moving a bit, and besides, it's nice to have a chance to chat! (1.7 miles walked)

The spring forward for daylight savings has left the early mornings dark again. I simply did not have the willpower to get out the door on Tuesday, so it was an afternoon run on the Highland Green loop with Ryan instead! The back road was almost clear of ice. (6.0 miles)

Didn't get out early and then dad to be in the office on Wednesday all day with an early evening meeting, so running just didn't happen. But Thursday I was working from home, so I got a bit of work done before dropping Sam at school and then headed out right after drop-off and was back at my desk at the kitchen table at 9:30. Highland Green loop again. Overcast and a bit breezy, but warm. Felt decent. (6.0 miles)

It was a beautiful day to be outside on Friday! Started with a few solo miles at Wolfe's Neck, running through the campground and finding a short new-to-me trail through the woods to make a nice loop back to the farm before meeting up with Val and Anne at 9:30. Might have almost gotten the car stuck in the mud on the dirt road on the way there (those were some serious ruts - oops! 😱) but it was such a pretty morning to be out and nice to find some dirt and mud (while running at least 😂)!

Always so lovely

Never tire of the bridge view

Once the ladies arrived, we started out with the same loop I had done, but headed off for a bit more of the singletrack behind the farm and got a little off-course with the ice making it a bit difficult to find the correct path. Thankfully, Val eventually figured out where we should be heading, even though I was the one who had run back there before 😆and we got back to the dirt road and headed to check out the animals before finishing up our run. A bit of dirt road, a bit of muddy, icy trail, a bit lost! It's all good. And always nice to have a chance to catch up on the run with friends! (3.27 + 5.66 miles)

These little calves, born on 3/11, were so cute!

Really new little lambs

From there, we headed to Wild Oats to meet up with Keri and Mindy for lunch and to hear all about Keri's trip to Patagonia! By the time we arrived, the early morning fog had burned off, the sun was out and temps were in the 60s. We sat outside, eating lunch and sharing stories. Such a nice treat! 

Then, shortly after Sam got home from school, she and I headed over to Mom and Dad's for a walk down to the swinging bridge. Definitely warm out! (1.5 miles walked) 

And finally, to finish up the day, we went to get ice cream at Fielder's Choice! Certainly can't complain about a March Friday like that one!! 😍😎

After such a beautiful day on Friday, Saturday dawned damp and dreary, with rain predicted for the majority of the day. I headed out around 7:30 and managed to get in most of my miles before the mist started falling at least, though! Ran the cart paths and Heath, adding in an out-and-back down to the river. The Cathance proper trails were way to icy to go farther, but I figured I had to at least try it out! Heath and cart paths were about 99% ice-free, although definitely very squishy. Four deer and one bluebird seen. (8.0 miles)

Peek-a-boo

With pretty much nothing done off my typical Friday to-do list, the rest of the rainy Saturday was spend doing house cleaning, laundry, bills and all the other stuff that is easily pushed aside when there's the chance to meet up with friends for lunch and a run and to spend most of the day outside! It seemed more than a fair trade 😊

First day of spring on Sunday!  Overcast, a bit foggy and damp at 8:00 am, and not quite warm. Headed out on one of my typical random meanders, doing some roads, with a bit of trail, dirt road and cart paths thrown in. Three deer plus one beautiful owl seen. (12.0 miles)

Temps never warmed up to the originally predicted high 50s, but the sun finally came out mid-afternoon, so Dad joined us for a walk across the street. We did a mix of roads and trails up and over Mt. A. Nice to get out, and also to get Dad out of the house for a bit (Mom was home with a headache 😓) (2.4 miles walked)

Happy to finish up another solid building block week with 41 miles, and the plan to crank things up a bit more once April hits!

 

I usually post more photos of Gigi, since she is the sillier and more photogenic of the two cats, but here's a cute one of our old man, Ronnie, who has definitely become a bit senile and can be really annoying in the early morning hours yowling away, but who really is a sweetheart. 😻

Where's the Snow?

Missed the nice weather window on Monday as I had an early meeting and then the rain started, so it was a total rest day. And that is OK.

Tuesday, I knew it was going to be cold enough that it was likely to be icy, so I chose to start work early and duck out early enough to get in an afternoon run. Ryan decided to join me, and it was nice to have company! Very blustery, cold and still quite slick in the shaded spots. Ran out and back on Highland Green. (6.0 miles)

Headed out on Wednesday after dropping Sam off at school for late start. Ran out into Highland Green again and decided to run the loop. The first half of the back dirt road was fine but then it degraded into a fair amount of ice, which meant a fair amount of tiptoeing. (6.1 miles)

A bit of snow fell overnight, just enough to keep Thursday morning's run interesting. Another Highland Green foray, this time with some of the side streets thrown in for a bit of extra distance. (8.0 miles)

Friday morning, we were headed up to Great Glen for a night, as Sam had the day off from school. When we cancelled our overnight there during February vacation due to the storm, we were able to find a decent deal for this Friday in March and figured there would surely be enough snow up in the notch to make it a worthwhile visit. Wish we could have stayed another night, but it just got too expensive!

In any event, I knew I wanted to get in a run before we hit the road, so I got out at 6:00 am for a road run around town. Sunrise has gotten so early (well, at least until daylight savings hits!) that I missed the pre-dawn colors but the sky was still looking quite pretty when I crossed over the connector bridge. Calm and quiet, and mostly clear pavement. (7.0 miles)

Then it was into the car for the drive north! It wasn't a bad drive and we arrived around 10:30. It was fun to have the chance to catch up with some old friends in the outdoor center at Great Glen, but looking out across the fields, it sure was looking grim with a lot of bare ground. Definitely not what we were hoping for! Still, we were there so after our chitchat and getting changed, we donned our skis and headed out. Pretty icy and probably some of the worst conditions I've skied on there, mostly because it was early March and you just want better from winter!! 

We picked our way up to Great Angel Cabin, and Sam really did great, considering the conditions and the fact that all of our skiing has been on basically pancake flat terrain and there isn't a lot of that at Great Glen! There were a few falls and one bout of tears, but overall, she was a total trooper!! And despite the less than ideal conditions, we made the most of it, had some fun out there and it is always a joy to be in the mountains. (3.25 miles xc skied)

By the time we got back to the outdoor center (or before, ha!), we were all starving, so we quickly changed, got our gear back into the car and headed down to Jackson to the J-Town Deli for lunch. It was delicious! It felt very weird to be inside eating, but I was able to remain mostly calm about it 😉 Definitely just a bit of a mind shift after having worn my mask everywhere for so long now.

We contemplated skiing out onto the Ellis but I saw our friend Leslie's post that she had been out there earlier and would "100% not recommend," so we ditched that idea and decided to head back to the Glen House to see if we could check in and then get out for a short snowshoe. 

The hotel is quite nice, and of course, the best thing is the location and the view. Hard to beat!

We didn't get a mountain view room, but the room itself was definitely comfortable and above average in terms of niceness. After we checked in and weighed our options, we ended up heading back down into the field for a short snowshoe walk on some of the singletrack trails that wind along the edge of the bottom of the hill headed up Mt. Washington. The trail was definitely not well used, with a lot of debris and downed trees, but we enjoyed a nice tromp through the soft snow in the woods. I let Sam wear my Dions, so I was relegated to my old Tubbs snowshoes and let me tell you, they were heavy! WHEW! Ha! But making the most out of the conditions and the day we had, and it was good to get out! (1.37 miles walked)

Then it was back to the room to shower and head down to the Grille for dinner. Once again, very odd for me to be sitting in a restaurant inside, but we had a lovely time, the food was delish, the view was pretty grand and it was nice to be out enjoying the day with my two favorite people. Cheers to that!

Unfortunately, a storm moved in in the early hours and the predictions were for a lot of heavy wet snow up in the mountains. We most definitely did not want to get caught in that, so we decided to leave first thing and hopefully avoid most of the weather. It was raining when we left but that is better than snow for driving, so we felt like we made the right choice, even if it was kind of a bummer to not spend the day up there as we had originally intended. But with conditions as they were on top of the weather, it just didn't make sense. So home it was, and while it meant for a shorter trip, it was fun to get away and we will just have to go back to spend some more time up there!

After getting the car unpacked, laundry started and things put away, I headed out to do the groceries and Ryan headed out for a run. We got home at the same time and by then it was definitely quite a deluge. Yuck! But, I had planned for some activity on Saturday and I didn't want it to just be another zero day, so after lunch, I suited up in my rain gear and headed out for a walk on the powerlines. The 20 year old raingear is definitely not quite waterproof anymore 😉😆 and the trails are definitely not yet ready for running yet. Way too much ice on the main route, although things were dry up high. Came home wet, but warm, and glad to have gotten out to move my legs a bit. (2.0 miles walked)

The rain gave way to freezing rain and a bit of snow later in the evening, and overnight the winds picked up, which meant, I was in no way rushing to get out on Sunday morning 😉 Finally got myself out the door around 9:30. Bright, cold, very blustery and a little bit of everything in terms of conditions underfoot, from bare pavement, dirt and puddles to slush, ice and snow. Pretty much just wandered around randomly through Highland Green and the neighborhood roads with not a whole lot of excitement or glamour to the run. But got it done! (13.1 miles)

Wrapped up the weekend with dinner at Mom and Dad's and then it was time to get ourselves ready for yet another Monday!