Great Run, Great Ski

I had ambitions of getting in a trail running with the Trail Monster gang this morning, and following it up later with a cross country skate ski. It all went really well. Much better than expected actually. I had hoped for at least 10 miles running and at least 5k skiing, but I did more on both fronts and hit faster paces than I had expected to.

The Run
Had a good showing, with around 13 of us starting off and the distances for each varied. Ian, Jim, Nate, Blaine, Val, Rick, Erik, Randy, Lilly, and some others were all there, making for a fun crowd. I mostly ran with Ian and Nate, and the three of us got in a full 15 miles.

The trail conditions were superb. Despite warm temps the past few days, the trails were very well packed, making it easy to go faster. I was pleasantly surprised to see our overall pace when we ended (8:51/mile). Not bad at all for a trail run on snow and on some pretty gnarly hills. What was also great was it felt relatively easy. Felt great to be clicking on all cylinders.

Here's a little video of today's run:


Ran 15.0 miles @ 8:51/mile pace.
Snowmobile trails with well packed snow.

Very hilly.

20 degrees, rising to upper 30s. Sunny.

Brooks Cascadia 3 (screw shoes), long pants, windbreaker (shed after a couple of miles), long sleeved shirt, beanie, gloves (off and on).

In Between the Run and the Ski
After Bradbury, I headed to Stephen's house to visit him and his family. We drank coffee, had a beer, and played Call of Duty on his Playstation 3, doing our best to survive sniper attacks and machine gun fire from teenage kids who were way better than us.

The Ski
Arrived at Pineland Farms just after 1pm. Jim was going to maybe meet me here, but snowblower repairs thwarted his plans. Temperatures were now in the 40s, and I wondered what trail conditions would be like. I ran into my friend James, who had just wrapped up a session with his daughter and some of her friends. He said the conditions weren't too bad, but recommended I ski the Oak Hill side, so I did that.

I felt great and continued to feel in very good control and felt I was much more efficient. I stuck to the green trails, but even then, these were pretty hilly (at least to me!). Still, I continued to improve all around, as evidenced by nearly identical overall speed as last weekend, despite hillier terrain, going farther, and having done a run earlier in the day.

Darn good day.

Skate skied 8.4 kilometers @ 10.4 kph (6.5mph)

Groomed trails, icy and pretty fast.

Moderately hilly.

Lower 40s, sunny.

Long pants, long sleeved shirt, short sleeved shirt, beanie, gloves.