Saturday Snow Run

Today, I badly didn't want to go to the gym.  The regular Zumba instructor and first back up were both out of town, most of my Zumba buddies had other plans, and I wanted a long run which was not going to happen on the track.

At least once a year, I tend to do a 'deep snow run'.  For 2014, my first (only?) deep snow run was today.  Because even deep snow was more motivating than the gym.  The rules of deep snow running are to wear yak trax and to keep an even effort.  ('Even effort' means that snow runs are much slower than regular runs.  Bonus rule: don't freak out when your pace is super slow.)  I'm remembering these things from last year's snow runs.

True story: I'd started the day imagining just wearing my trail shoes.  What a fail that would've been. 

I headed out around 9:30 this morning (just as Mo was coming on to vacuum) and there was a mix of plowed, shoveled, and not so much going on.  For the side streets, I just ran in the street.  It almost looked like the plows had been down the streets, but not quite.  Magically the park board did clear the sidewalk on 43rd street (I was shocked too!) but they did not clear most of the paths around Lake Hiawatha that are normally cleared.  Thank goodness some cross country skiers had been by and laid down some tracks for me to run in. 

Then, all of a sudden, I figured out what all of South Minneapolis hasn't been plowed yet!  Because all the plows are at Lake Nokomis for Pond Hockey.  Pond Hockey!  It actually wasn't really a headache for me to run by, even the busy part of the lake.  But it was impressive to see so many people out.  Round the back of the lake I started getting cold so I threw on my balaclava and stopped to snap a few pictures.  My favorite thing for the day was the 'Christmas Trees' all covered in snow.

On the way back home, I took a slightly different path around Lake Hiawatha so I was only on not-plowed garbage for a few feet before I hit city streets and then the plowed sidewalk again.  When I got home I took the chance to scrape off my car so I wouldn't have to get snow all over myself later.  Interestingly, I did not turn off my running apps, so it's added about 10 minutes to the total workout time and made me look much slower than I really am.  Sigh.