Miscellaneous rambling:
- Can you believe a full-price alpine ski day ticket at Killington is now $169?!! While I have my own equipment, in case you don't, a 1-day onsite rental will set you back $85! $254 for a day of skiing, before you figure in gas, lodging, food, etc. Yikes! Maybe it's good I only ski once or twice per season? Otherwise, it makes a stronger case for XC skiing, which even at major areas in New England, runs closer to $24 for a full day ticket and $25 for a day's rental.
- In my continued efforts to key cold at bay as my aging fingers become increasingly susceptible to cold, I added one more item to my winter running attire arsenal:
Convertible gloves. They did the trick in this week's 13°F run
on Sunday. Yes, the price tag isn't cheap, but I had a $25 gift
certificate to Wakefield Running Company, so it was like a
half-price offer. - I finally got my Philadelphia Marathon age group award in the mail:
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| Not that I need more awards, but this acrylic one is pretty neat, and I feel I definitely earned it! |
Monday: 2
Charlestown, RI. Two miles? Pathetic, right? And it took me almost 40 minutes to get it done. What?
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| Yeah, this is how the trail (NST) looked: a foot and a half of virgin snow! Fun, but oh so tiring. Needed to take a couple of breaks to catch my breath. |
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| A little easier in this section where at least one person had skied, but still slow going. Or, as you can see above, slow going for me that is. Brady just ran through it, and then repeatedly and obediently waited for the slowpoke (me). |
Tuesday: 4 snowshoe hike, 2 run
AM: Westerly, RI. Snowshoe hike leading a group of 6 CCC guys. Snow too deep to get any traditional CCC work done, so we switched to a snowshoe hike. One slightly bigger group went on a much shorter hike at Barlow, while I led a group at Woody Hill. Parked at the gate at Fern Drive, as most parking lots not plowed during the winter. I wanted to go completely around the Woody Hill Marsh, which we did and I think the participants appreciated the beauty, as several took out cameras. Unfortunately, though, I underestimated both the distance and the pace we would travel, so I felt badly for keeping the group well beyond the two hour guideline. Most seemed to really enjoy it, so I guess I fretted too much.
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| The only remaining foundation in Woody Hill that has a roof covering. It's pretty neat! |
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| The frozen over Woody Hill Marsh. I believe the vast majority of Westerly's 20,000 residents don't even know this exists, never mind have never been here. |
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| Some of our participants out here today on a beautiful winter's day. |
PM: 2 run
Westerly, RI. I took Brady out in the afternoon for a road run, and I'm not sure why, but he wasn't into in and was just dragging. Very atypical of him. No sense forcing him. Cut it short and headed back to the house, where I lost interest to go out again.
Wednesday: 4 snowshoe run
Westerly, RI. Same route as I took the gang on yesterday. Today it was just Brady and me. I did see and talk to a few mountain bikers on Fat bikes at the beginning, but they weren't venturing out this far as they were trying to pack down a local trail (Driving Miss Hazy). Unfortunately the snow was soft and very wet today, as temps got up to about 40°F.
Thursday: 16
Charlestown, RI. OK, enough playing in the snow for now, and time to get down to business. Parked at the Breachway Grill parking lot, and then ran local roads in Charlestown and SK, including Green Hill loop and Run 4 Kerri loop:
- 3 miles easy at ~7:20 pace
- 9 miles target MP at 6:20s
- 1 mile hard at 5:55 (that wasn't part of the plan, but I was feeling good!)
- 3 miles easy at 6:50
Post workout, I went to Wakefield Running Store and picked up a pair of convertible gloves. I read good things about these, and despite being thin, supposedly the optional glove cover keeps fingers warmer at cold temperatures, which is exactly what I'm looking for. May have an opportunity to try these in the cold temps coming this weekend.
Friday: 4 run, plus Boston walking
Woke up (that's a good thing, right?) and found the weather to be pouring rain and dark. I had only a short window before we went up to Boston to watch Matthew's meet, and had no motivation to run in the dark and rain.
Despite the even worse weather when we got to Boston (freezing rain and sleet), besides the thrill of watching Matthew win his 5K heat, I really enjoyed our short time in the city. Took the orange line to Chinatown, and it was deja vu from my old days of working downtown for 13 years. I was thrilled to remember the streets and establishments well, and while my favorite dim sum restaurant was unfortunately closed for renovations, the dim sum restaurant across the street worked in a pinch. In fact there are so many good restaurants in Chinatown (and other parts of Boston). I have fond memories of large group lunches at Penang (Malaysian food) and smaller group lunches at Pho Pasteur that my Vietnamese colleague Tran brought us to. I had forgotten that you now need proof of vaccination to enter any public building in Boston (and they really enforced this to get into Reggie Lewis track facility), but obviously that was no problem.
Westerly, RI. Back home now, it was 32° with a light rain. Pretty miserable weather really, but I wanted to get out for something, so Brady and I were off. It only got worse as it soon turned it to a steady rain, and I was pretty cold in this slop, so 4 miles were more than enough.
Saturday: 6
Westerly, RI. WTAC Group Run. Originally planned for Grills as our 3rd annual February group run, but it was not to be after a melt / freeze cycle with frozen boot prints in the trail and an unplowed lot. Switched to roads and that worked out just fine for us. It was a group of seven, but I ran mostly just with Dave and had a good conversational run down into Weekapaug.
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| Fun group and run! |
Sunday: 20!
Westerly, RI.
Plans: Had my doubts on getting this one done. I had mapped out a 10-miler solo ending at RWYC group run start at Avondale, and then would run the RWYC course, more or less, to get me to 20.
Reality: Alarm clock went off at 6:20am. It was dark and 9°. I reset the alarm clock to 7:30am. I told myself that was only acceptable if once the alarm went off again, I would immediately get my keister out of bed. And I did!
So I switched it up to instead run the RWYC portion first. There were only 4 RWYC runners today perhaps due to the cold weather (it had warmed up to only 13° now, with a wind chill of 2°). Ran with JV for about a couple of miles, and the rest solo. Never pushed the pace, and ran a very consistent run with an average pace of 6:54.
Weekly mileage: 53 run, 4 snowshoe hike
Weekly synopsis: Still off my target weekly mileage, but an improvement over last week. And besides, I wouldn't trade off playing in the snow for a few more miles!
Weekly highlight: Running in the snow! Any snow here in southern RI typically does not last long at all, so I try to maximize my enjoyment out in the snow. Don't get me wrong; my 16 and 20-mile runs were more productive for sure and both went all; just not as much fun!
Weekly lowlight: The very cold rain run on Friday afternoon. Just shivering, soaked, and not enjoyable. Life goes on.
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| I'll close with this gem from a local coffee shop. No, I don't exactly agree with this, but coffee is important to me and I did get a chuckle! |
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