Author Archives → soiledchamois

Sticks in Spokes, Shoes

I had a plan for Tuesday, but that plan fell apart for multiple reasons.

First, I saw the weather when I woke up; 2˚ with a “real feel” of -11˚. Hmmm, 12˚ was bad enough on Monday, screw that.

I also started doing the math in my head for how much time I needed for the lumber, plus the Cul-De-Sac-Shack duties I needed to get done, plus driving 45 minutes each way to the dentist, not including the time actually spent at said dentist.

Shit, this whole dentist thing is a real stick in my spokes.

With that, I aborted the lumber and freed up some time to get things done proper without rushing around like a nut.

Speaking of sticks in spokes…

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More Wintry Lumbering

After getting 30 miles of lumbering in 5 days last week, I took the weekend off to slack and watch footy. The slack went fine, but the footy was lackluster with Spurs losing at home yet again, 2-1 in the dying minutes of stoppage time to West Ham, who are in the gahdamn relegation zone! I continue to hate them. Moving on…

I was eager to get back in the woods on Monday, and got to the trails just as the dark night turned to dark grey daylight.

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Getting Miles, Using Deer

Our flirtation with sunlight ended, and we were back to steady snow and winter slop today. Slop that wasn’t due to hit until mid-morning, and slop that I had hoped to avoid driving in by getting to the trails early. But it turns out the weather goofs were wrong, and a steady wet snow fell for nearly the entire lumber. Such is life, whatever.

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Lumbering and Clumping

TUESDAY

With my rediscovered motivation via the not-so-subtle art of self-fat shaming, I was back on the trails Tuesday for another lumber in the snow.

The additional snow that fell over the weekend had turned softer, and while not that difficult to walk in, it was mildly irritating when I suffered from the age-old problem of wet clumps of snow forming within the chains of my microspikes. One minute I’m walking along fine, the next minute it’s like walking on high heels made of snowballs.

With that, I had to make some adjustments to my gaiter straps, the main culprit of the clumping. The “clumprit” if you will (sorry). And during this adjustment at the .50 mile mark, I realized that my Garmin had accidentally paused right after I started. Thankfully, after thousands of miles on these trails, I knew that I was indeed at mile .50 and was able to make the correction when I got home. It took my dim bulb of a brain a little while to process the mismatched mile-math along the way, but somehow I survived.

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Shameful Motivation

After Saturday morning’s loud clackity-clack-clack of a lumber on the still icy trails, and the remaining weekend filled with slack, sloth, and existential outdoor fitness ennui, on Monday, I found myself hurling Escape II down the road towards the trails and another lumber.

Saturday afternoon, we got around 2″ of wet snow, and it turns out it was just enough to cover the ice and allow for more grip, less ass cleching, and way less ice-crunching noise. Yes!

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Clacking & Clenching

Monday, 5:57 AM

After two days of rain and warmer temps, I was up early on Saturday morning, anxious to get out for a lumber on what I hoped would be ice-free trails. As you can see from the photo above, they were not.

The park lot was void of ice, but 99% of the trails were still solid ice. Microspikes were needed, and as I CLACK! CLACK! CLACKED! my way down the path to the trails, I was surely scaring every critter in a 5 mile radius, as well as disrupting the peaceful morning of the ice fisherman making his way out onto the ice to my left.

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Opting For Slack, Clean Showers

The week started with two days of indoor lumbering/running (not affiliated with the 2026 Soiled and Ignorant Tour), and was followed by two days and 8 miles on trails covered with solid ice, slush, and standing water. Which, come Friday, I had had enough of. Well, at least my feet had enough of the lateral torsion caused by hiking on lumpy ice and slush.

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Lumbering Through The Melt

We sort of lucked out on Tuesday when the predicted day of ice and sleet ended up being a day of rain, on top of 3 or 4 inches of remaining snow and ice. This made for some Grade-A winter slop. It also forced me to retreat to the Not-So-Stankment to bust out another 3 miles of intervals on the treadmill, leaving some Grade-A sweat and uncontrollable projectile body fluids in my wake.

After two days and six miles of running intervals, I was determined to get into the woods on Wednesday for some miles and pics.

I was up early as per usual, got my gear together, and then proceeded to do some laundry and make Wifey breakfast as I waited for daylight to make an appearance.

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Making Choices, Avoiding SAD Naps

Since I traded bikes for hiking shoes, I have mentally survived the winter months way better than before. Along with losing the anxiety of smashing my blood-thinned body on the ice (again), proper equipment—much of it left over my from cycling days—for the long winter has helped a ton; proper jacket, base layers, GORE-TEX shoes, gaiters, trekking poles, micro spikes, and snowshoes, if necessary, have all made venturing out into the snow and ice more tolerable and downright fun at times.

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