Slop Fooey

Today I learned a valuable lesson, one which is probably common sense actually but having now experienced it first hand, I will attest to. It is just as miserable running in slop as it is riding in it.

Really.

I'd been meaning to get out and see what the local trails looked like since the snow storm last week. Judging from my back yard I could tell that there would probably still be snow. There was. With the warm sunny weather we have today the snow is starting to melt in earnest. The frost, what little we have in the ground, is also coming out. What this yields is a mix of standing water, slick mud, slush, snow and ice cover. None of this is terribly conducive to running.

For mountain biking this is fairly miserable going, not to mention the fact that it ravages the trails. For trail running it's a whole different ball game. It's still miserable and terrible for the trails but it's also hard as sin. The trails I speak of have tons of rocks and roots, which make it difficult to navigate in dry conditions, as Cathy will attest to. With slick snow, ice and mud it was a challenge to stay upright let alone not trip over the hidden trail features.

Stupid ice, snow, slush, mud, and puddles!

Just another new challenge though, one I don't think that I will repeat for a while. My feet are still cold from the slushy puddles and my shoes and pants are covered in mud. For that matter, my calves are still sore from the run I did in the new shoes last week. We'll see what I have going on tomorrow with the legs. I can tell my lower quads are a little tender as well. Could be ugly. I ended up going further than I planned today as well as I wanted to press more into the main core of the PR to see what the trails looked like. The further in I got the more snow was still there. The powerline and gasline had the least, as expected, but the trails less traveled had a solid 3" of corn on them. It will be there for some time to come I would expect.


Yuck.