Winter Running

Contrary to popular belief on FaceBook, real runners do use poles...at least when the snow is several feet deep and unbroken!





It's been a good running week and I should hit 65 miles today. Some of it has been in snowshoes and some on pavement, but most has been on snowmobile trails in regular trail running shoes. The nice part about getting out on the pavement briefly was that I saw that my easy pace is getting faster. This is something that isn't apparent when I am running up and down steep hills on snowy trails.

Coach Jack has reminded me a few times that the tough winter conditions just make us stronger and faster for Spring! I hope this is true because I have signed up for Northern Nipmuck in early April and The North Face Endurance 50K at Bear Mt, NY in early May. I'll also get out to Mt Aggie the week before Bear Mt to run a few miles with my friends at their Fat Ass 50K. I haven't really raced (other than a DNF at Vermont 100) since my time off following my broken neck last Spring. It's time to get back at it!

With at least a foot of new snow Friday and a few more inches this morning, today is definitely looking like a snowshoe day. I have some new cheapo snowshoes that I am absolutely loving! They are Yukon Charlies, (Yukon Who???). They cost me about 30 bucks when all was said and done. They are about 110 dollar shoes, but marked 50 percent off for end of season and then I had a coupon for another 30 percent off. I figured that if I wore them just once and they broke it would be no big deal because they were so inexpensive. I also planned to just use them for stomping around in the deep snow in the woods, not running. Well, it turns out that they are awesome to run in, they feel light on my feet, they don't ever click or bump each other, I love the bindings (best ones I've ever had on a pair of snowshoes), and they have great cleats for climbing in the deep powder. The materials are not the top of the line and they might not hold together for long. We'll see.

Do I really need four pairs of snowshoes? Probably not. Kevin and I are going to recondition my Tubbs and my Redfeathers and donate them to the elementary school. Those kids are out waddling around on snowshoes in their phys ed classes all the time. Of course I'll keep my speedy little Dions for faster paced snowshoe running on trails that are already broken.