Saturday, April 04, 2009

The Return to Pineland Farms

XC ski season is over, which means the trails at Pineland Farms are open to running and today the Trail Monster clan did our first run of the season there. It felt great. I love running there. However, the trails still have a bit to go before they're ice free. I'd estimated it was roughly 70% ice, 30% mud.. and a lot of that ice was pretty slick (Mindy can probably speak to this best, hee hee). Screw shoes would have definitely been helpful but alas, I just had my regular trail shoes. Still runnable though, just had to slow down at times or take a detour off the path.

Quite a few of us out there today, including Ian, Emma, Ryan, Chuck, Jeff, Mindy, James, Jim D., Carter, Don and... and.... I think that's everyone? Fun time. I ran with various people, but probably most of it was with James.

I felt great today. Very energetic, but I've been keeping it light this week so I guess that's to be expected. Still, I guess it shows recovery is going great from that tough 50k run last weekend. The pace today was actually pretty quick (for me) given all the ice still coating the trails. I'm on track with my training, and everything continues to move along nicely. Looking forward to incorporating more long runs into the regiment in the weeks and months ahead.

After the run, James and I soaked our legs in a pond. That icy water felt great.

Ran 12.3 miles @ 10:07/mile pace.
AHR/MHR - 143/164
Trails, 70% ice/30% mud & dirt.
Very hilly.
Lower 40s to upper 40s, overcast and foggy.
Shorts, short sleeved shirt, Moeben sleeves.


5 comments:

middle.professor said...

Good to see you running Strong Jamie! And good to see everyone else this morning after a winter away (actually, in a sense, everyone else was away since I was at Pineland every Saturday!).

mindy said...

I'm starting to think it's not a quality trail run unless I wipe out (2nd time in 2 weeks!) Awesome run today. I hope I get to take you up on the bet of a burger and beer - fingers crossed, will let you know what happens. Glad you're feeling on track!

pathfinder said...

Perhaps I should have run at pineland instead of Bradbury...I only had 25% trails,and the rest was deep snow,mud,water and very wet slippery ice...very slow running. I did get a good workout though.

Garry said...

It is so great to see you back at it and virtually pain free. Excellent runs over the last little while!

UMaine Cooperative Extension said...

Running the trails in mud season? You're nuts!

Of course we already knew that.