Happy President's Day

Since I had today off work, I decided to take advantage of it and get in a run with my brother this afternoon. We drove over to the Happy Days Visitor Center parking lot next to Rt. 303 and started our run from there.

Head to head with one of President Roosevelt's CCC workers

Although the air was cold, the sun was out when we arrived and it felt great to actually be able to see a good amount of blue sky. Looking towards the west though we could see some dark snow clouds that were headed our way. It was one of those days when one minute you had wall to wall sunshine and the next minute you were in the middle of a blizzard. As they say in Ohio, "if you don't like the weather, wait a little bit and it will change".

We figured since the trails were probably too sloppy from all the rain/snow we've had lately that we'd run up by the ledges to avoid any low lying areas and then head over towards the Kendall Hills. (If you haven't already figured it out by now, this is one of my favorite running routes.)

Sure enough, as we got up by the ledges and turned left to head towards the Ice Box Cave, the clouds opened up. The snow came down as small pellets, very similar to those ice cream Dippin' Dots (which are great in the summer if you haven't tried them). Here are a couple pictures we took up at the Overlook. The funny thing is, the second picture was taken immediately after the first. Notice the difference...

On our way to Kendall Hills, we also did the 1.5 mile Pine Grove loop. The trails were very soft today but weren't too muddy so they actually felt pretty good to run on. Every once in awhile though you would step on a piece of ice that would sink down into the ground and kind of surprise you. The only area with a lot of ice was over by the ledges, but even that section improved as the snow came down. I was glad I wore my screwed shoes today though!

As we continued on, the snow really started to pick up... as you can see from this video...

Once we reached Kendall Lake we decided to head straight for the biggest hill at the Kendall Hills area, run up it, and then head back to Happy Days since my brother had to get back to KSU to work in the evening. This is always a tough hill to run up, but even harder when your feet are slipping...

On our way back to the car we continued to push it and even ran hard up the last hill to Happy Days, finishing up with a total of 7 miles. I was happy that my legs felt pretty fresh for the entire run today and I associate that with all the rest I've had the last week or so. Now I need to get in some more mileage and prepare for my upcoming long runs/races.