Congrats Scheherazade!
Deffo haz a jealous of your trails, SLOgoing! Apart from the lack of mountains and greenery, everything around here was treacherously icy this past weekend.
This was showing up at Puslinch Tract about 10mins after sunset on Saturday - the thick, sketchy ice in the dark was probably about my worst nightmare, but I put some faith in my traction devices and it paid off. Also finally got to run in the new hydration vest my mum bought me for Christmas!
It actually turned out to be a pleasant run, despite still having some pain from the dental surgery last Tuesday, some cold symptoms and general fatigue, and nearly falling once. Puslinch Tract seems to be the place I go to face my fears in running, and it's worked out so far - knock wood!
What sucked is that in the shower afterward, my lower back locked up on me. I suspect it has to do with the wild flail of limbs required to keep me from falling, but for a few minutes I could barely breathe. I'm still feeling some pain and tightness in my left hip and lower back today, though it's much better than it was. The weird part is that I decided I'd try running again on Sunday, and that seems to be the one time when I don't have any pain at all; it's very strange, but I'll take it!
It was further treacherous ice on the Mill Run Trail on Sunday, but at least I had daylight. Very good thing, too - the trail was totally washed out in the construction zone under the highway, and I had to pick my way along a steep side-slope of shifting rocks to reach the other side.
About 3/4 of the way through, I ended up post holing through some fragile ice that had formed over the trail where meltwater had flooded across. It was a little sketchy, but the ice itself was beautiful:
Don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.
Then, however, I found the end of the line for me:
That's an active flow of water from left to right, and it would be at least ankle to calf deep. Given that it was already below freezing and dropping rapidly (and the water would be close to the freezing mark), I noped the hell out of crossing that and turned around.
I didn't make it up to the footbridge (one of my fav places) and my 10k run became 8k, but at least I got some pretty views over the river anyway.
Don't think I set any goals for last week because of 8-hour recovery/dental stuff/illness, but I ran 3 times (Tr/Sa/Su), did 4 strength/conditioning workouts and walked a few times.
This week's goals: run x 5
strength/conditioning x 3
mobility/stretch x 1
Have a 3-hour trail race on Saturday, and it's supposed to be 5c/41f with a mix of sun and clouds - I can't wait!
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ill advised racing inc.