An Almost Spring Weekend

This weekend turned out to be an odd mix as the weather decided to add a kick to my brains desire for spring. Friday, I was antsy all day waiting to get outside and run.
Once home I decided to wear the Minmus and run my favorite local ....the pit loop. This is not traveled at all during the winter, but with all this snow melt happening, I figured it should be run able.

I felt great running the ditch of the road heading toward the pit. As soon as I hit the trail at the pit entrance, I realized my calculations were way wrong.....there was still 2 feet of snow with a slight crust that ripped at my legs as I post holed for about 1 mile..uphill.

After the hill, hitting the dirt road was a treat and I enjoyed a speedier return home. This was by far the slowest I have ever run this route. I sure wish I had worn the sleeves over my Calv's.

SATURDAY morning my intention was to run Ian's planned route for the trail monsters. I figured I could probably hang with their pace for a couple miles but then would be able to follow their tracks as the fresh fallen snow would make it easy.

My first glitch in the plan was arriving 10 minutes late at Bradbury and missing the group. I am not usually late for anything but a flat tire on the truck had a different plan.

Though the first three miles of the BL in reverse is pretty killer as far as hills go, I loved the scenery as the gentle fallen snow coated everything. The trails were much better than I expected and the tracks of the trail monsters were easy to follow.

When I hit Lieghton road, I could see that the trail would normally continue to the other side but the trailmonsters hit the dirt road and I followed assuming there would be a problem crossing the river further down.

After crossing the river via bridge, I ran into Erik and his four legged companion on their way back (I can't seem to remember his pups name) and he said the group was not too far ahead.

About a half mile up the railroad tracks I met up with Val, Rick and Mindy on their way back. They left the group at the bushwhack trail to Oakhill. I said my goodbyes and decided to at least go until 6 miles before I turned around. This took me to the newly bushwhacked trail, which didn't look all that inviting.

I turned around and as I came out onto the road where I thought we ran down, I could see footprints crossing and heading down toward a new bridge. I didn't remember this at all but could see footprints crossing it so I followed.

I must say this was the nicest snowmobile bridge I have ever seen and I was sure I would have remembered it. Once on the other side I could see that the runners had apparently realized they took a wrong turn and headed back.

I stopped for a second and contemplated turning around too. My instincts told me that this power line would bring me back to the road crossing I saw at Leighton road and assumed Ian hit the road thinking this river would be uncrossable.

I was right as not long after following the powerlines I came across the trail heading back toward Bradbury (I assumed I was on the BL loop at this point) I was pretty darn proud of myself but that was short lived as I hit some fairly wet areas in the field leading up to Brown road and it slowed my progress quite a bit.

After crossing Leighton road, the trail back to Bradbury was quite pleasant as I enjoyed going down all those tough hills. After I crossed route 9, the fatigue was setting in and I decided to hit the short cut back to the start instead of following the snowmobile trail. I figured, how bad could it be as there was some foot traffic on this trail.

I found this to be a huge mistake and instead of an easy short cut back, I had a difficult post hole walk for about 3/4 mile. I should have just followed the trail.
Not only did the slow pace post holing affect my overall time, give me my slowest mile of the run but I ended up with only 5 miles on the return giving me 11 total instead of the 12 that I wanted. What was I thinking?

Friday
3 miles @ 32:15
splits:
9:36...144-165
15:02..147-166
8:30...154-161

Saturday
11 miles @2:18:20 (12:35 pace) 143-155 (aver & max heart rate)

Sunday...out of town...no run