8 miles over ice and through mud. It was fun, although I took a hard fall when one of my spikes got stuck on a tree root in the middle of a very steep, rocky and rooty section of the trail which was glazed over with a thick layer of slick ice. Going down felt like being dragged over a waterfall, or river rapids. Like in those Disney movies, where a lost dog falls into a river and swims down over the waterfall (now I hate Disney!).

20 feet down, I knew that "painful" does not fully describe the experience. It also has quite a scary element to it.

Gathered up my handheld way down and continued my run.

When I got down to the road, which was also under a thick layer of ice in some parts, I saw a tow truck load up a pick-up truck which had slipped on the ice and hit a rock. The right front wheel was completely destroyed.

I was happy to be wearing my spikes!

Sorry, no time for personals today, but I'll read through the thread.

QOTD: something like 800m-1600m-1600m-800m-800m intervals with 1 or 2 minutes recovery in between them. Not much choice around here, the 800m is the only flat loop in my hood.

Evening folks,

Life keeps gettting the the way of posting and reading here but I have been able to keep getting my runs in. Did a little over 14 miles on the mountain today. Mostly ice and snow with some mud mixed in. The good thing is that I found some more trails that are good for training. I didn't think there were any decent trails this close to home and I now realize why I overlooked them. They stink for mt biking so I was never on them.
Overall they aren't even that nice for runninig since they go straight down the mountain then turn around a go back up and aren't very long. But for training purposes it beats driving 30 miles to get to nice trails.

QOTD: The only spped work that I do is on a treadmill and are random in nature. I know I should do more speedwork but I hate it. If I run short it's to do a tempo run.

Week 3 or 4 of not pulling my lazy ass out of bed to run pre-work.  This is why I changed my schedule to 9 to 5:30. But I will continue to set the alarm and do it one of these days.  Which leads me to 6 miles on treadmill tonight.

QOTD:  No speed workout. But what Rocky said, if it was a group then it would be fun competing with each other.

Rocky:  One and a half more weeks.  Let's try to say hi.  I have a black jeep with a rack on the back with red gas cans and a bummer sticker "the woods is my church".  I will be sitting in a chair drinking a beer after the run.