Sunday at 10:00

[Todd Howell]

Hey y'alls. I'm fixin' to run tomorrow morning at 10:00 from Kirvin Park (off Williams St, Pittsfield). The plan is to run up to Farnham Reservoir and back down.

Full disclosure: IT IS ICY. Like ice rink icy. YakTrax are probably good enough but I'm gonna be sporting the Micro Spikes.

Gotta get some winter runs in before the heat wave this week :)

-JSA

[Theresa]

Directing a snowshoe race so will have to pass :(.   That plus I can't run......

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[Todd Howell]

Likely excuse.

[Judge Sunshiney A$$]

Well slackerinos, you picked a good day to not run with yours truly. The air was clear, the ice was think and the sun peeked out from time to time to tenderly warm my ass. But that, gentle readers, is where the easy out-and-back run took a detour. Allow me to spin you a yarn...

Everything started out as planned. I arrived at Kirvin Park at approximately 10 am, gave my gams a quick warm up, got my Garmin all synced up with the hey-there satellites, outfitted my hooves with micro spikes and waited until the 10-minute rule had expired. 10:11 and BOOM I was off like a shot or at least that's what it felt like to my lungs. As I passed through the park, that springtime scent of a winter worth of dog poo thawing on a warm January day filled the air and the softening sausages made getting through the park just that much more exciting.

Once across the bridge in the back of the park, the micro spikes earned their keep. The trail was covered in thick ice nearly the whole way up the mountain but they just crunched along like it was paved. I could have used a few slippery spots as an excuse to stop and rest but instead let my wheezing handle that for me. Once at the top I got to see what looks to be a finished dam at Farnham's reservoir.

I took a panoramic photo of the reservoir so you could see it in all it's wintry, newly-dammed glory but the photo sucked so I'm not sharing it. On second thought, why the hell not. The sky was pretty gray so it's washed out, but you get the idea.

So that was that; the hard part is over. Now all I had to do was run back the way I came and I'd be home drinking coffee in no time. But wait, I should take this slight detour; it pops right back out on the main trail just a little bit ahead. Out-and-backs are so boring and this teeny tiny little side track will make life so much nicer (stay tuned for a picture of what that teeny tiny detour looks like on a map).

Off I go, happily following a set of fat bike tracks on an old logging road, just a little ways before it meets back up with the main trail. Yup, it should be any time now. Wait, where did the road go? Why am I left with only a single track to follow? Well, it must be detouring a downed tree. I'm sure the mountain bikers took the most direct route back to the main road.

This is where that giant, logical, history-remembering part of my brain says stuff like "Bro, we've been in this situation before and it never works out. The mountain bikers don't ever go in a straight line anywhere. You will probably die if you follow their tracks." To which I responded "No way Brosef, this time is totally different. We'll be out of here in no time. The main trail is just over there, you'll see."

CLICK HERE FOR BENNY HILL THEME SONG

Here's a closeup of the slight detour. Keep in mind I never once left the mountain bike trail and only had to backtrack about 100' toward the end. Yup, it was the most direct path back to the main trail alright. The direction of travel is bottom to top.

The straight-ish path on the right is the main trail I took up the mountain (and should have taken back down). The little dot at the bottom is where I so brilliantly made the decision to take that little teeny detour, just to liven things up. As you might be able to discern from the picture, once I left the logging road there was not one point where I was traveling in a straight line, nor was there really any way to determine if the trail I was on was even trending in any particular direction. My Garmin would, from time to time, chime to let me know that I had successfully been lost for yet another mile. That part of my brain that warned me not to go this way was now looking up Benny Hill scenes on the YousTubes to rub in my mind's face.

Then I saw it through the trees, the Old Milk Truck! There it is! Oh sweet rusted relic of milk delivery days passed, how I love thee. Hmm, the trail seems to be going a different way. "AlBrote Einstein, bushwhack to the milk truck and get out of here!". "Nah Indiana Brones, I GOT this now". <Insert eye rolling emoji here> It turned out, I didn't got this.

Off I went, following those devilish fat bike tracks in a direction that was both not toward the truck and also away from the truck. Like a fart in the wind, the truck was gone. I cursed my bad decisions and was beginning to curse the micro spikes that had shifted on my feet and were starting to give me blisters. Encumbered by downed trees and limbs, I pressed on.

O Lawdy, what is that o'er yonder? CLICK FOR 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY THEME That looks like a blue tarp. And where there's a blue tarp, there's a ghetto blue tarp hunting shanty, complete with a road back to the main trail. I continued following the fat bike tracks but never let the sweet, sweet tarp leave my field of view. As I passed the shanty, hopped the stream, went around the downed tree that's blocking the road and picked my way back to the main trail I could feel my body coming out of shock; my knees started to hurt, my stomach took to growling and a headache came stomping through. But I didn't care, I was home free now.

Oh no I wasn't. As I turned onto the main trail and headed back toward the park I was greeted by two dogs and their pit bull leader. I thought that was a wrap for me; that I came all this way only to be eaten by dogs. It turned out the pit bull was a scaredy cat and the other two had no interest in me. Neither did the girl they were with. We exchanged pleasantries and I was on my way.

There you have it folks. You made the right decision not to join me today. If ever someone was navigationally challenged, that someone would be me. For completeness' sake, here's a map of my complete route. I think it's obvious where I stopped listening to reason.

Your pal,
JSA

[Fred Pilon]

I'm with Theresa: The No-Running Group, so I couldn't join you today.

So, how many miles was that? Seems like a perfectly fine run/hike to me; he who wanders is not lost, as i recall. :-)

My boring hike today:

http://caltopo.com/m/HU9A

No ice the entire way--just nice soft leaves, or dirt the entire hike.

___________________________

Fred

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[Todd Howell]

My Garmin says it was about 8.7 miles but it sometimes has trouble with the tight turns and never adjusts for effort miles, so I'm rounding up to an even 10. My ability to get lost is unparalleled, even on trails I've traveled dozens of times. One day it will be the death of me.

[Theresa]

Alas, I have no link for you all to see what I did.  BUT I will "use my words" as mothers always say to the young ones.

I drove to Woodford State Park, was the RD for a snowshoe race, and when all had finished (last one in at 1:06:42), I set out on the course with my Big Y shopping bag to pick up the 250 red solo cups and directional flags that marked the 3.2 mi route. It was very pretty, even the 3/4 mi. they ran on the lake (don't worry, the ice is 1' thick. It's winter up here).  At this point I would include a photo of the not so thick ice, clearly more of a slowly running stream at the point I was crossing, but I was afraid I'd break through and that my phone would be history.  Instead, picture yourself in snowshoes, looking down at your feet, with water flowing under you….   In reality that was the only soft spot on the lake, and there was plenty of snow everywhere else.  A nice race. 

[Todd Howell]

Tweety, I seem to remember hearing a story about a new runner who was brought on an epic winter run that included crossing a frozen lake/pond. Said runner was never heard from again.

[Theresa]

I remember that too, and ironically this runner then allowed two of his children to run on my cross country team for a total of eight years, and next year I get the third!

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