Humbling day but a neat deer encounter

Tackled a hilly trail course today and the uphills got to me, leaving the legs very tired. I'm still easing gently back into hills after living in flatland for years and having my Achilles issues in 2008-2009. I suppose I made some progress today, but it was hard.

Ran past a tom turkey but my neatest wildlife encounter of the day came earlier. I came up on a young deer, then realized there were two more near as well. They did not run off, but stood staring at me, the nearest maybe 30 feet away. One of the others bobbed its head at me repeatedly. I stood still for a time watching them, then slowly walked on before resuming running. Pretty neat I thought.

No medium tights to be found

So there's an apparent national shortage of medium running tights right now. Who'd have thought my size was so hard to find? Is it because winter is ending?

Mud run

More spring rain had left the woods pretty soggy this evening. My Brooks Cascadias handled it all pretty well.

I saw four wild turkeys together.

Two weeks until the Bash trail race. I'm going to have to hold back in the early miles, until I get stronger. The last two racing seasons I've started with a 5k, but the Bash is twice or that... or more. It's billed as "10kish".

Rainy day

Resting the hip I tweaked last week. Have a cold. Hope to run again soon.

Springing forward

21 days to the first trail race of the season on my calendar.

Snow in Oswegatchie Hills

My first trail run of '09 was on the Oswegatchie Hills Preserve trails, which still had a couple inches of snow from around New Year's. It was slippery in some places and I couldn't see the smaller rocks but I had no mishaps. I really labored on the uphills and took two walk breaks. It was beautiful in the woods today though.

Later on I did a pushups test: 30. There's much work to do.

Happy New Year!

It was 7 degrees F this morning, off to a cold start in '09 already.

Here's a pic to round out 2008. On a balmy day in late December, some younger runners showed me how to handle Connecticut's rocky terrain in Guilford's Westwoods, home of the Bimbler's Bash Trail Run.