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.
I find myself shocked at how “back to normal” I finally feel after the last month of holidays, snow, ice storms, and unwanted slack. To quote the great George Costanza after he ate that magic, penis-moving mango, “I’m back, baby! I’m back!” Well, maybe not that good.
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.
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!
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.
In my last post, I lamented the fact that mid-Michigan was hit with an ice storm that made driving the trails pretty dumb. That was Friday.
Saturday, the ice was still here, but given that we lacked a number of kitchen staples, I made an early morning trip to the grocery store instead of the trails. Later that day, we got even more ice.
Sunday came, and guess what? ANOTHER day of freezing rain and ice. Meanwhile, an hour away in Lansing, a friend of ours said it was 46˚.
It happened again. I thought I could justify not lumbering in mid-Michigan’s recent snow/rain/thaw/freeze hellscape by calling it a “mini-break” and embracing four days of rest, recovery, good food, and slack in the name of staying warm and dry with bones all in one piece.
I thought this plan would be good for me, and have me rested, recovered, and ready to get back at it come Monday morning.
Part I, Thursday
Mother Nature threw mid-Michigan another meteorological curveball (high and hanging) in the form of 50˚ temps and several hours of steady rain on Thursday. Followed by 20˚ temps and high winds overnight, which proceeded early morning snow showers on Friday.
Due to said rain and melting snow, I avoided a woodsy lumber on Thursday, and spent the day doing what I do, along with writing a long-winded post that will be published in the near future. Maybe, I don’t know.
After my snowshoe lumber (snlumber? lumbershoe? snumbershoe?) on Friday, I came home, made breakfast, and set about getting shit done. Thankfully, there was no need for me to leave the house. So I didn’t. Nor would I leave the house for the next 48+ hours except for brief forays onto the deck to get a couple of bird pics, refill the bird feeders, and yell at Lola to hurry the hell up during one of her shit journeys in the early morning darkness.
After Thursday’s short 4.35-mile snowshoe that felt like 20 from breaking trail through fresh snow, I knew I needed to return on Friday with a new plan and a better attitude.
Not that my attitude was bad on Thursday, but after I was done, I felt beat down and winter weary. That will happen in time, usually around late January, but right now it’s way too early not to make some adjustments to find more enjoyment. You know, sort of like life.