First Snowy Run of the Season

After running in a Santa Suit in above seasonal temperatures just a few days ago, today I was running in the snow.

I headed out to the Grand River Trail this morning to do an out and back between Freeport and Blair. My actual plan was just to run along the trail for about and hour, then turn around and head back. My turn around point was slightly under an hour just because I would have had to cross a major road and get over to another section of trail to keep going. At my turn around point, I was over 58 minutes, so I figured that was close enough. :)

It was a very enjoyable run this morning. The snow fell gently the entire time, the wind was relatively calm, my legs felt good, and I even saw a fox a little over 5K into the run. I wasn’t quick enough to photograph the fox (wasn’t expecting him), but I saw him trotting along towards me and then quickly turning around and running away. I did happen to take a photo of his tracks, which show his turn around point.

The bridges over the Grand River and over Hwy 401 were quite slippery this morning, but the trail itself was in quite good shape. There were only a couple spots where it was a bit icy and some small slush puddles.

Overall, I had a great time on my run this morning. I took it pretty easy and it was quite pleasant.

I took some photos to share with you. Enjoy.

Time to start my run at Schneider Park at Freeport

From the starting point, I had to run over this bridge and then under it, to get to the main trail.

Once on the trail, there are nice sections right beside the Grand River

As well as tree lined portions, just away from the river.

Here’s where the fox quickly turned and ran away.

Bridge over the Grand – it was a little icy

I couldn’t see the river from here, but this was my favourite section.

Just under 60 minutes, but looked like a good place to turn around…

And take a wee Sharkies break :)

Headed back down the way I came

Which takes you past the Pioneer Tower…

And this interesting tree…

past the small dam…

and back toward the first bridge.

After under, over, and under the bridge…

I was back at my starting point and finished my run.

Total distance: 19.43 km
Time: 1:56
Weather: –3 C, snow, wind 17 km/h SW

Today…

Today I decided to ride my bike out to the Walter Bean Grand River Trail to take my new trail shoes out for a spin. I put on my running clothes and shoes, my Garmin, attached my running hat and hand-held bottle to my bike lock and locked it to my frame, put on my helmet and headed out the door.

When I arrived at the trail, I leaned my bike up against a signpost and grabbed my keys to unlock my lock from the bike so that I could secure my bike to the post. When looking at my keys… crap… I hadn’t brought my lock key with me. It was at home on my work keys. So, I decided to be creative and just make it *look* like I had locked my bike up by looping the coil-y cable lock around the post. Hmm.. this post was too big.. I needed to find something smaller. I looked around. Aha! I saw a much smaller sign post up in the grass a bit. I walked my bike over to it and swiftly wound the lock around and looped the hand-held water bottle portion through (I couldn’t get it off the lock, so I thought I would use it to my advantage and figured I’d just use my bike water bottle for the run). While doing this, I apparently made some hornets very angry and one stung my arm! Ouch! I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings other than just looking for something to attach my bike to that I completely missed the fact that there were hornets going in and out of this post. Well.. the bike was here now, so I might as well leave it. I backed away slowly to not anger any more insects and headed off down the trail, leaving my water bottles behind as I was not going to chance getting stung again, just to grab a bottle.

While I was running, I had a constant pain in my arm where the sting happened. Dang hornet. At least I had comfort in knowing that they were protecting my bike for me as it was not properly secured.

I was starting to enjoy my run, when I turned around a corner and was startled to see a mountain bike coming straight toward me. I jumped off the side of the trail and he apologized. No collisions – all is good.

The remainder of my run was quite uneventful and I enjoyed the new shoes, but as I was coming back toward my starting point, I was wondering how I would manage to get my bike back off the post o’ hornets. The answer: very carefully. I took my time, walked up to it slowly, studied the loops of the lock to see the simplest way to unwind it. I moved one section and backed away. One hornet came out of the post and checked out the scene. After it went back in, I approached to complete the task. I flipped the lock around and pulled my bike back as quick as I could, hoping it had come loose from the post. It had! Success! I examined my bike helmet and bike for any hornets and headed for home. I’d had enough adventure for one day.