Hey, none of that commen sense stuff around here, coupled with good judgement. We're EXTREME remember.

You guys have to hear about my run tonight-We got about 6 inches of snow from the big storm everyone was freaking out/excited about here. So I dropped my son off at soccer practice and ran from there to this really cool estate called Shelburne Farms (you may or may not have ever heard of it-built a long time ago along the shores of Lake Champlain by the Webb family). There are some trails there I like to run on in the summer which I realize are not plowed but thought I could get around anyway on some tractor roads through the fields. It's about 7pm, the sky is clearing from the storm so there is some moonlight and I did have my headlamp but didn't really need it with the moonlight reflecting off of the snow. So I follow this one dirt road which leads to a couple houses thinking I would be able to cut across the fields. Well I get to where nomally there would be a dirt road to go across and it's not plowed. It's a short distance through the woods so I thought I would go check out what it's like on the other side of the tree line. The snow was over my ankles but not a big deal-I get to the other side and it's not plowed. There were some tracks either from a truck or xc skiers so I decided to follow those. It was a bit windy so it wasn't long that the snow was a bit deeper because of the drifts. I followed the tracks until they started to go in a different direction then I wanted so I made my own! It was so neat being out in the middle of this field, 7pm at night, no one else around and me making my way a cross the fields looking forthe tree line the trail would normally follow to get back to a plowed road so I could get back to where I started from. Going back wasn't an option because I had it already set in my mind this was where I wanted to go. I made it back just fine-my feet were wet but I was over dressed so I stayed warm. Sorry if my tale is a little confusing but I thought it was fitting to Buddo's quote. I got back and was talking to some other soccer parents who think I'm nuts and admire that I have the ambition to still go out and run in this weather. Have a great weekend! Kelly

Very nice. It's always very clear after one of these storms blows through. Yesterday was supposedly the biggest full moon of the year, whatever that means. I like to keep running so when these kind of days come around you are able to stay out and have fun while everyone else is tucked away missing all the fun. I ran the Green Ribbon Trail, which follows along the Wissahickon Trail. What was snow for you was rain for us down here in PA. The creek had flooded the trail so I ran through a lot of mud and standing water that was ice cold. I hit a paved section of the trail as it approaches town and took my shoes off. It was 27 degrees out. I ran 18 minutes on the asphalt trail, hardening my feet up again. The standing water was ICE cold and shocking. My feet would warm back up after I ran a few minutes. The water stung the tops of my toes and feet. The bottom's are getting tough again. My calves are wicked sore and complain as I walk anywhere. They don't bother me as I run though. I'll continue to experiment to see how cold I can get away with. It's funny, I hate having cold feet, but running barefoot seems to increase the blood flow to my feet so my feet aren't as cold during the day as they normally used to be. We'll see. I'm keeping up the barefoot lifestyle as I'm digging all the textures. Long run tomorrow morning. I couldn't get up this morning.

It's cool to read about all the snow runs... it's hard to beat a quiet night run on new snow, under a full moon. Everything is so still and quiet and bright. I got in a long temp run tonight (about 8 miles of tempo @ AT) and a couple miles of warmup/cooldown. We have a monster blizzard coming through tonight (I guess it's the first of four lined up to hit us this week). Today's high was about 60. Tomorrow's high will be about 15 and the low 0, so running tomorrow may be miserable. Hopefully the storm will blow out and the winds will calm down. Have a great weekend everyone! - Chris

So much for the high of 15... I think it topped out at 3F today. I did an hour at 3 below zero and had icicles in my eyelashes: Come on spring! - Chris

Wow. You can stay in our extreme group. Walked around the block barefoot yesterday. Ouch. Rough concrete. No running over the weekend. Too many Christmas and brithday parties. Actually, those are lame excuses. I suck. (Don't correct me. I do, and I need to say it to myself, hear it, and believe it, and do something about it). Gonna put in two runs today. Keep up the cool posts! Gonna be 60 degrees here today. Will get some more barefoot in.

"Yeah, I was actually born that way."

BWHAHAHAHA!!! I gotta remember that line... that's awesome....

And Chris, winter doesn't officially start until Sunday.

UHHHGGG! It's warmed up a bit... now it's -4F. It was -15F last night... shattered the previous record low. Actually, we could really use two weeks of -40 in the mountains to kill the d*mn pine beetles. They are decimating the lodgepole pines. They estimate 90% of them will be dead in 10 years. This is the area around Winter Park, as seen in Google Earth. All of the brown/red trees are already dead: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.055738,-105.872326&spn=0.101041,0.288391&t=h&z=13 - Chris

The most recent figure I could find was 2300 square miles in Colorado... http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080424-AP-pine-beetle.html