Morning trailers!  Up early to get kiddo #1 to swim practice unfortunately not to run.  It's a mix of sleet and rain at the moment, but I'll get in 3 or 4 miles later, plus yoga.

Here was last night's run.  Managed to get out on the trail before  the 6 pm closure for deer mgmt.   I'm sure the snow made their work much easier.

qotd: Have you run any new trails lately?  Or do you stick to the regulars?  I realized that I haven't run a new trail in months, mostly because I am no longer traveling for work.    At home, I have a good variety of trails from outside my door to within 20 min.  There is one park, 20 min in a direction I rarely head that has a respectable trail system.  I think I need to check them out.

I won't get out for a run today. It looks like this storm is setting in for awhile. I have no run scheduled until Saturday. I did get out for a nice 5 miler last night. Beautiful picture, DC.

QOTD: I have not run any new trails in quite some time. However, I will revisit some old trails I have not run in a year or so on Saturday. And, yesterday I was invited to turkey hunt on friend's property that borders a WMA. I was marginally excited about it until he added, "My property borders this WMA, and there is a back way into the WMA that only a few trail riders know about." Trails? What trails? Miles and miles of horse trails... So, I got very excited about that. I'll get out there and do some scouting next month. This is not far from my house at all. And I never even realized it was there. I knew the WMA was there, but I didn't realize there were trails. So, I'll be hitting some new trails next month.

I managed to get out last night after 9 and decided to run the creekside trail just down the street from my house.  If I do an out n back to the end of the trail it's a total of 3 miles so not overly long but a good little trail run that I do not have to drive to.  We had about 3-4 inches of snow fall yesterday so my headlamp illuminated everything.  It was awesome.  If you have never run in the woods in the dark after (or during) a snowfall, I highly recommend it.  I could have run without my headlamp as the neighborhood lights on the other side of the creek were lighting up the sky with a pink haze which somewhat illuminated the trail section I was on.  But I noticed something strange as I made my way off the road, down the hill and onto the trail - footprints.  Not human but they following the trail dead in the middle.  They followed the trail almost the whole way down to the turnaround.  Small prints and close together.  I thought maybe a dog but I had no proof.  There were occasionally other sets of prints that went off the trail and then back the other side.  When I got to the turnaround I saw 5 sets of glowing eyes.  A deer caught in a headlamp.  They were feet from the trail and did not move.  I thought they might have been the reason for the footprints but then on my way back, I saw them.  One pair of eyes....and then another.  I could make out a small body moving swiftly and close to the ground.  Then another pair of eyes darting/weaving in and off the trail.  One stayed o and the other weaved as I kept running toward them.  I am guessing fox but they never let me too close.  It was fun as I felt like they were letting me chase them.  Good run!

DC - nice picture.  I love how the trees look after a fresh snow.

QOTD: No new trails.  I have pretty much run everything within a 45 min drive of my house.  Hmmm...That's not true...there are still a few I have not been at yet.  Some are tough to initially access so winter is a tough time of year for them.

Have a great day!

Good morning all.  I had 4 miles planned for this morning, but I somehow closed my eyes for a minute, and an hour had passed.  So, it became a rest day.  I'm fine with that.  I got a nice walk to work though with a view of the local mountains that I generally run in.  I'd rather be up there today, but with a commute like this, I can't complain.

QOTD: I typically try new trails in the warmer season.  During the winter, our trails are covered in snow and ice which can make it more difficult to find the trails and to find your way around.  So, I've been sticking to the ones I know well.

My work commute:

Worked last night and got beat up pretty bad with calls. Wanted to get out of bed at 1 and somehow overslept and didn't crawl out until about 3. Now the cripple, aka DW, has me running all over the house doing errands. I was planning on some type of a run but I may just decide to go on the trainer and elliptical and watch the second movie of the Hobbit series.

QOTD: No. I had wanted to explore a little this past fall but it never happened. Maybe this spring. Some of the trails I'd like to explore grow over during the summer and I don't like to run when I can't see where I'm stepping.