There's no snow in New York, which irks me. I'm heading there in a week and a half, and at this point it looks certain I'll be hiking on microspikes and not snowshoes. I like snowshoes. The trails are so smooth and pleasant when all the bumps and jagged bits are buried under snow. I have the last week of the year off, so I may go back then in the hopes winter finally arrives. I took my winter pack hiking locally on Sunday, and it went well. Eleven miles and 1300' total ascent. My trip will have a 15 mile day with 4500' ascent, but this is a start. On Thanksgiving I also ran my fastest two mile run in ten years. 7:53/mile on a very flat route.
Seriously though, I'm kind of glad. I was terrified that I'd go home for Thanksgiving to 60° temperatures and come back--having lost all my cold tolerance--to 15° blizzards. (Do we have strikethrough capability? I only know how to block out.)Me too! It's my first winter not living in Southern California Texas and I want snow, dammit!!
You and caeli should just wait until January - mid March. That's been the real winter in those parts of NY the past few years. But who knows, maybe it's a mild year all around.
Thanks! I'm sure you'll see snow soon enough. The lake effect snow is bound to drop a few feet once the temperature drops another five degrees. Do you think you'll try any winter activities your first winter? The winter flies by for me when I stay active.
That's great! It makes me think I should do more organized runs. Looks like there's one here in town Saturday that has a cookie station, a mistletoe station and a candy cane station. Clearly nothing too serious, which probably makes it right for me. Do you run a lot of 5ks?
I have done five, which is about one a year since I started running. I have knocked about a minute off my time (not my pace, alas) in those years, showing my dedication to the slacker philosophy. Organized runs are a lot of fun, and I think there is a "bib effect" from the atmosphere, official timing, and permanent record that improves performance. I finished second in my age group on Thanksgiving, and for the first time took home a little prize in addition to my finisher's medal. You should sign up! I bet you can maintain an 8-minute pace for three miles, as long as you save the cookies and candy for the finish.
Well I did the 5k today! Thanks for encouraging me. I came in at 8:08/mile, and while I was hoping for a sub-8 minute pace, I'm still pretty content with it. I hiked 15 miles yesterday and am admittedly a little sore from that still, so all in all not bad. It was really nice doing the organized race. I may look for more of them and work my way up to a 10k and maybe a half marathon. I'm not the quickest, but I feel OK at my pace.
That's great! I bet it was the mistletoe station that held you up. It's always good to have a target for next time, and the with the 5K distance you can always tell yourself that with a little more push, you might have gotten down to the next whole minute. I might try to sneak onto a track tomorrow to make an effort for the Runkeeper Global 5K.