Over the River and Through the Woods / There's always somebody tougher than you....

It keeps snowing intermittently around here. Not a lot, but an inch there, a couple there. Then it melts and then it snows an inch or two again. It's not too bad, but it seems to snow before or during every planned run. We got about 2 - 3 inches yesterday, making the roads a bit slick. Because of this, and because I have wanted to run it for a while, I decided to go to Indian Spring Metropark to run the Hike / Bike trail.

Once I got geared up to go, I walked for about a third of a mile and then started to run. This was the first time I got to go outside with my new Brooks Adrenaline 11s and was hoping not to need the Yaktrax, but decided to put them on as there was still some snow and a little ice on the paved trail.

I was able to keep a pretty good, consistent pace throughout, at about 9:45/mi and was thinking I was pretty tough running out by myself in the cold on the trail. When I was about 2/3rds done, I saw someone coming from the other direction. It was a woman pushing a stroller. No, it was a woman running behind and pushing a double stroller with two kids and moving at a decent pace! As they passed me, I saw the two kids in the stroller behind the plastic guard, all bundled up and smiling. I don't know if she was going to do the whole loop, but I wouldn't doubt it.

Thankfully, she wasn't going the same direction as me. If she would have passed me, that would have not been good for my ego.

I think this trail will be a regular running destination for me. With this run, I'm within a mile of my highest monthly mileage total ever at around 64 miles (which I think is good considering it is January). I'll need to average about 80 a month to meet my mileage goals for the year.

Does anyone have anything exciting (or less than exciting) to share?

Would you rather deal with the cold, the treadmill, or do you pack it in until spring?