Monday, December 10, 2007

ICE, ICE, & MORE ICE
5 Mile Run in the Pine Bush
Monday, December 10, 2007

Well, that was a bear!

I waited until the evening to run because I wanted to give the roads some time to clear... admittedly, I also wanted to give the layer of ice on my car time to break up a bit before I went out and broke the car free from its frozen sheath. Headed over to the Pine Bush in hopes that the woods would have kept the trails from being completely iced over... other than a few spots, no such luck!

In a way, I wish I'd gone out during the afternoon... I could have gotten some great pictures of everything coated in ice! Fortunately I brought my Yaktrax with me, because I would have had a tough time getting from the car to the trailhead without them, and I definitely wouldn't have made it very far on the trails... in most spots there was a very solid layer of ice coating the ground. Even with my Yaktrax the footing was tough... I know I spent a lot of energy tonight just trying to move forward (it reminded me of what I have to look forward to snowshoeing...!)

I'm hoping to make a pair of screw shoes once I can actually find the screws... the ones they had at Home Depot when I stopped there tonight weren't ideal. With luck Lowes will have a better selection... if not I'm really going to be lamenting the demise of Chase Pitkin out in Rochester, because it seemed like I could always find hardware there I could never find anywhere else. If the screw shoes don't work, at some point this winter I may shell out the money for a pair of Stabilicers, which I've heard good things about, and which might have worked better for tonight's conditions... though to be honest, they look like screw shoe bottoms that can be put on and removed at will!

Still... at least I was able to get out for a tough, noisy, short, slow run through the woods... definitely better than sitting at home!

JMH
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