Corridor 19/Mason Brook Trail

This time change is still messing with me. Getting up at 5am, which is actually 4am, yesterday left me dead tired by the time I got home from my run last night. I was sound asleep by 9:30pm and ended up getting over 10 hours of sleep, but I still had trouble waking up this morning. I'm always strapped for time on Tuesday mornings so I had to make a decision quickly on where I was running. I decided to go over to Corridor 19 behind Walmart. It's been awhile since I've run over there, and I wanted to do something other than the usual road runs. There was no way I was wearing snowshoes, so I put on my microspikes and started out. As soon as I hit the snowmobile trail, I knew I had made a bad decision. It was really soft. But at this point, it was too late to go somewhere else so I just kept going. The tough footing made the run a lot harder, which I actually liked; I was putting in a lot of effort. I attempted to stay on the sides where it was harder packed, but I was constantly going back and forth across the trail to find those spots. I veered off onto the Mason Brook Trail which turned out to be even softer and a pretty steep climb up for 2 miles. I still just kept going. I felt like I was really pushing myself hard, and I like that part, but around 1.5 miles up, I could feel that my heart rate was just insanely high, and I had to stop to walk about 20 yards. I think the warmer temperature was getting to me, too. After the quick break, I ran again all the way to where the trail meets the Black Cap Connector Trail and then turned around. The run back down Mason Brook was pretty nice, but after 2 miles, I was ready to run up or flat. The way back on Corridor 19 is a little less strenuous, so the soft footing wasn't as difficult, but by the time I got within about 1/4 mile from the car, I realized I was bonking hard and pouring in sweat. I guess my mountain running needs some work. It was still a pretty good run. 10.1 miles with 1709ft of elevation gain at a 9:41/mi pace.

After John was dropped off, we ran some errands and then went for a hike on the Boulder Loop Trail. The weather was just way to perfect not to. It was almost 50 degrees and the sun was shining. We were also lucky to end up with the trail all to ourselves which would never happen on a weekend or any day in the summer. John doesn't love hiking, but he was having fun for most of it. Towards the end of the climb up, he told me his legs were really tired. I kept telling him he was so close to the top, thinking that we were, only to have another turn in the trail going up. Ha ha. Oops. He made it up there, though. It felt so good to be out there, and I think John even appreciated it... a little bit. We ran most of the way down, and he really liked that part. Turned out to be such a good time with him, and I was so glad to have had the day off of work to take that hike. Here are a few pictures from our day.