6-ish very tough miles "running" yesterday evening
My "run" yesterday evening went like this- left snowshoes in truck as trail looked packed, put microspikes on and headed out - temp wasn't too ba (upper 20s), but the wind was 20-ish mph, gusts to near 40. The trail was packed nicely for about a mile and was out of the wind as well, started wrapping around the mountain and wind picked up and the trail started to get blown in, got to my junction and wanted to continue around the mountain, but the trail was obliterated. Soooo... I headed down to the bottom of the draw losing all the elevation I had gained. At the bottom I was out of the wind and the trail was better packed, but was going to add a mile or so to the run (and more elevation), as I climbed the trail became less packed and the wind was again blowing the trail in. I was about half way up the draw and had to put my lamp on, the trail became fainter and fainter and soon found myself off the trail. I continued up the draw post holing in snow up to my thigh. I could see the saddle I needed to reach and struggled on. Now added to the deep snow was a bunch of blow down to negotiate I finally made it to the saddle and hit the trail again, the wind was rough up high and had numerous drifts to buck, but at least I was headed down.
got in 4.7 miles in the hills- some of the trail was packed and was fine to run, other stretches were completely blown in and a post holing affair- definitely adds to the difficulty (and time)
Saturday got 6-ish miles in with a buddy in Missoula- mix of snow packed running and post holing
I normally start the year out w/ a "year run" ie 2013- 13 miles, this is the first year I couldn't do that- wind chills were below 0 I got 7 miles in on the treadmill, no way could I stomach 17!