the Way of the Turtle

5.5 Mile Run at Thacher Park
Tuesday, December 22, 2009

OK, I definitely should have worn snowshoes today. Not because the snow was deep - it most spots the snow on the trail was frozen almost solid - but roughly 2 miles of the trails I ran today were in awful shape from people walking on them while the snow was soft (and then it froze leaving postholes everywhere. Slow, painful going.)

The rest of the paths were pretty well packed from snowmobiles and made for decent running. I started up on Beaver Dam Road and the first thing I saw was a tree that had been cut down to block snowmobiles from using the path. Surely there was a better way to block the path than to cut down a tree! I looped around on the upper trails and then headed off on the Hop Field trails, which started out OK but quickly became a mess. I was very pleased to finally make it back to the snowmobile trails and be able to run a bit more.

At first I'd planned to cross the road and run along the escarpment for a ways, but the condition of the non-snowmobile trails and the wind that was howling along quickly changed my mind. I'll just have to take in the views from the cliff-tops some other time...

JMH

4 days so far...