CRUNCHY SNOW

It was a seriously crunchy sound when running today. I started out with my normal shoes for running in snow and then realised that the road was like ice. Back I went to the flat and dragged my orienteering shoes out of the back of the cupboard. They have got serious metal studs in them. Running was great once I had these on. It had thawed yesterday with +5 and last night it froze again so everywhere was either ice or crunchy snow. I really enjoyed my run in the woods. Loads of kids on sledges and plenty of good tracks to run on. I started at 1400, the sky was clear and the sun was up - or to be precise going down - thats one joy of living so far north. In places it had already dropped below the trees and the temperature was starting to get crispy (that's a very technical weather term for -5) I was surprised not to get any blisters from the shoes though as I haven't had them on since the early summer when I was training for Jukola in Finland. But the feeling of security when running on the icy bits was great.

I have been keeping my runs to around 30 mins most days. This is the longest that I can run day after day without overstress and being too tired to work in the afternoon. I know that I can run longer just by slowing down but that does not suit me at all. My whole running history has been about clipping along at a good tempo and I am not about to stop that now, whatever the training books say is most effective. I also don't get warm if I run too slowly so there is good reason on cold days like recently for getting on with it. I hope that this snow stays for a while because I want to get back out on my skis again.