Winter is Here

PIC and me

I woke up this morning to winter. Like TOTAL winter. And, while that means snowshoeing season, it also means lots of layers. Steve and I planned to run from his house up to Goodson Rec Center to meet the group at 8. It's about 13 miles via the Highline Canal trail. We left a little late...6:15 and we were anxious the whole time, feeling like we were going to be late. We had to cut off a few sections of the canal trail and head onto the very slick roads and sidewalk to make it in time. I think we got in around 10 before meeting with the group. We learned that if we want to get in significant amounts of distance before meeting the group, we have to be better prepared to leave at 5:30 am.

Steve-O checking out the pink mountains, fresh with snow and sunrise.

The snow was several inches deep and completely untracked. As we got closer to the rec center the snow thinned out to under an inch. Low and behold there were tons of peeps waiting for us and ready to run.

Troy had decided to run with the group today and was planning on pushing Annie in the Chariot. It was pretty snowy and I admit, I wondered whether he would bail (I have no faith...right). Nope, nope, nope. He was there waiting, Chariot loaded with kid, blankets, snowsuits, snacks, sippie cup, the whole shebang.

Good sized group today! What dedication.

Everyone took off at a nice even clip. The run was gorgous. We ran in the ditch for a little ways to spice things up. We got to the 5 mile point on the trail from Goodson and the group turned around. We ran maybe 30 seconds and there was Troy. He was right on our tail. He ran with us for quite a ways after that until somebody had some tempo work on their schedule and most of us hopped into the tempo work. We cranked out two 1/2 mile sections of steady hard tempo in the last three miles. So fun! Adding tempo at the end of a 20 mile run makes me feel like a rock star.

Tyler and Anne in the middle. Their kids were with the sitter and they got to run together. Nothing like "date morning". Anne hung with the lead group on a tempo effort today. You go girl!

Right as the front group finished up the run Troy rolled in with Annie. He ran 10 miles today, longer than ever by 3.6 miles, and all of that with Annie in tow. I'm so proud of him. I ended up with a nice 20 mile run and it felt like an easy day!