SNOW!

We got lots of snow this weekend, but that was not going to affect my exercise, or was it.

I woke up Saturday morning to an inch or two of snow and drove out to Lake Padden for the second Cyclocrazed Cyclecross race. As usual I was one of the first to arrive. Got ready and eventually went down and registered. They were busily setting up the course. I waited in the car to stay warm, once enough of the course was set I went out in the snow to see how my bike would handle, or how I would handle the bike in the snow. It was not too bad. I made it around the course a few times and on my third lap I noticed that the bike was a little sluggish, slowed down and saw that I had a flat. I was hoping that it was a very slow leak and I just noticed it. I borrowed a pump and heard the bad news before I saw the tiny bubbles percolating out from the in between the rim and tire. I was toast as I unloaded everything from my bike at home and did not bring it. UG. Jacob showed up just as I was noticing the problem. We let him ride the course. He made one lap and that was enough for him. We decided to head home.

On Sunday, I woke up to green grass (no snow) and left to meet the group of trail runners at 8 am as usual. We ran from the VET in fairhaven. On my way there I went through a section of town that had about two inches of snow and is lower than our house (at the lake elevation: 340 feet).

The trail starts out flat and was very wet, not much snow, but starting to snow. We ran out the Interurban trail. After the first flat mile or so we turn and go up towards Lost Lake, turned onto a trail called Hush Hush (yeah don't tell anyone - its a great trail). As we ran up and up this very windy trail with lots of switchbacks where you can high five your friends as you run past I was noticing sections where it was in between trees that I was seeing 4-5 inches of snow.

At the end of Hush Hush we turned left and went towards the Hemlock trail and some went back and a few of us kept going up towards Raptor Ridge. The snow was getting deeper and deeper. It was GREAT! Running single file through the snow and we cut a nice path. We saw a lot of other runners out there today. We made it to the turn to Raptor Ridge and went up only to be turned back less than a quarter mile into this section of trail due to too many fallen trees blocking the way and with the heavy snow, no promise of beautiful view at the end. We turned back and ran down the same cut pathway we made coming up. I think the snow got as deep as about 7-8 inches on the run.

Going down in the snow was fun and slippery, but with a little care you can kindof run fast and slip and slide just a bit. Again we had lots of fallen trees to deal with, but not too bad.

We got back to the car to find about two inches had fallen while we were running. After driving home and parking out of our driveway, I mean the sled zone, we had lots of fun playing in the snow at home. I left with green grass to come home to about 3-4 inches. As I write this later in the day, we just got back in from Jacob testing out his new snowboard on our driveway and I measured about 10 inches in the backyard. Should last a couple days.

Sunday Run:
1:54:19
10.1 miles
138 Avg HR
1900 Ft Climbing