today i was supposed to meet up with some of the LPTR folks to run a 15mi point to point (which, incidentally, i received my LPTR sticker last wednesday! officially part of the group!) on the ice age trail in heartland. we were supposed to meet at the end point parking lot at 8am to carpool to the start point parking lot.
turns out that jeff and i had it backwards and were at the start point lot at 8am and there was no one there. we were worried that no one was coming so we decided we would go run "the usual" back in wales. we drove back to where my car was parked in wales on the glacial drumlin trail and hopped on that and ran for about 1.5 miles until the turn off onto ice age which runs through lapham peak. the out and back in lapham is about 7 miles making the run 10 total.
it was tough running on the sheet of ice that has become the paved portion of the gd. thank goodness that last night i outfitted my running shoes with screws! what an amazingly cheap and inventive way of combating the ice/snow! worked perfectly! i used 3/8" hex screws which i got from home depot for a little over a buck a bag. i think there were 8 in a bag so i bought two bags. i placed the screws near the outside of the shoe so that i wasn't actually landing on them and that is where it seemed the shoes were the thickest. i know there's a few "how to"s out there where they use way more screws but i found that this was enough for me. i recommend trying this before going out and spending $$ on yaktraks or some other device that might not work as well and certainly won't be as cheap. also… i didn't lose any screws on the run! i believe that it is common place to lose some at some point so i'm really happy that i didn't lose any.
once in lapham it was breathtakingly beautiful! hoarfrost covered the branches on all the trees and (since we're expecting a dumping of snow) the sky was bright white with heavy clouds. it was magical! it is really a challenge to stay unhappy, stressed, or negative in any way when faced with such magnificent life. it is humbling and has the ability to make a person really realize what's important in life. at least for me.
2 comments:
Beautiful pics! I might have to give screws a try this year. That or perhaps the YakTrax that everyone seems to buy. I have a pair of trail shoes but they still slip quite a bit when it's icy out - which seems to be almost every day this winter :)
I got yaktrax for Christmas and promptly returned them since I already did the screws. they were something like $45 bucks! I'd rather spend $2 bucks and get just as good traction and not sacrifice any weight in the process!
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