Saturday, December 19, 2009

No Country for Cold Men

Small turnout this morning, with just Jim, Erik and myself hitting the trails at Bradbury Mountain Hill. Too bad, as the cold wasn't that bad and it was a beautiful morning.

We started out on the side of the park that's across the street, but not a lot of it was broken in, so we decided to head back and hit the Boundary Trail, which we mused would be packed down (it's a popular trail).

The Goretex jacket started to seem a bit much, so I shed it when we passed the cars. I wondered if just a long sleeve shirt over a short sleeve shirt would be enough. Jim was running with about the same, but he's a bit crazy, so that had me concerned. However, it was fine. Bit chilly at first, but didn't think much of it after a mile.

The Boundary Trail was as expected, well packed down and relatively easy to run on. Lots of big patches of ice, but the screw shoes helped a lot. A picture is below. However, I think I need to add two to three more per shoe to get a little better traction. The 18 screws per shoe configuration I used the past few years made me feel like Spiderman and gripped superb, but I don't think I need quite that many though to get the desired results.


Ran 7.6 miles @ 10:45/mile pace.
AHR/MHR - N/A
Trails, coated with snow (mix of loose and packed) and lots of ice.
Very hilly.
7F degrees to start, 19F degrees at end, sunny.
Brooks Cascadia 3 (w/ screws), Goretex jacket (shed after 2.6 miles), long sleeved shirt, short sleeved shirt, beanie, gloves.

2 comments:

Blaine Moore said...

I ran the trails in Windham near Sebago Lake - they were all icy and very easy to run on, well packed down. Got out on them both days this weekend, miles upon miles of trails available already.

I don't think the snowmobile trails are officially open yet but there have been plenty of snowmobilers out on them.

pathfinder said...

I find that 12 screws seems to work best four for the heel and the rest for the mid and toe.