This week starts week # 4 of 18 for Fargo Marathon training. I had a great week of running, logging 31 miles including a 4 mile race on Saturday and a little over 11 miles through some beautiful snowy paths on Sunday.
Saturday's race was the Frostbite Four in Beresford, SD. My running buddy Jenn, wanted to run this for her birthday, and my wife Corrin came along as our cheer section. It was a well organized race and we had pretty decent weather for February. My goal pace for this race was to finish in 30 minutes. I did it in just a hair under 29, mission accomplished!
According to the Hal Higdon Intermediate II training plan, I was scheduled to run an easy 8 miles on Sunday. Jenn and I had planned to meet up Sunday morning and run this together. We had received about 4 inches of snow overnight and there were no parking lots cleared yet in the area where we had planned to run. I suggested we leave from my house and we could run a random route through the streets to get in our miles.
A couple of times this year I have gone out on some winter trail runs and Jenn had expressed interest in going sometime. So, I took her through a hilly little side road not far from our house. This path has some pretty serious hills, and to make matters worse, most of it was covered in snow that ranged from ankle to almost knee deep. There is no question, this was a challenging run, but it was a beautiful one also. So much for a scheduled easy run, Jenn was not very happy with me for taking her over the hills. When we finally finished, I just had to grab my camera and run back through there to get some shots of the scenery in that area. No, the hills were not easy by any measure, but the view was more than worth the hard work it took to run through them.
Had the opportunity to spot a deer up ahead on the path!
Can you spot the deer on the right side of the path?
This, is the beauty of running!
One of the monster hills along our Sunday run!
Wow, that is just beautiful. And makes me cold to think about running in it!
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