The First of Febuary was Fantastic!

Winter Beauty

Last April when I took my first steps (running) I was on the Union Canal Trail along the Tulpehocken Creek about 10 miles from my house. I love water, plus this trail is soft gravel and almost no hills, so it was a perfect place to begin my running again. I can't wait to run there again, so with temps near 50 on Sunday and a bright sun, Loretta and I headed in there. Well, the park system does a good job keeping the trails in nice shape, but they don't plow snow off of it and since we had a few inches of snow last week, the trail was still to icy/slushy/snowy to run on. I'll have to wait till spring to run there.

So plan B - we drove over to Blue Marsh Lake. The trails weren't 'runable' either, but all the parking lots were dry, so we measured a loop around the largest one (a little over 1/2 mile)

It was gorgeous - temps were perfect, sun was bright reflecting off the snow and my legs felt good! My legs were rested because I hadn't done any workout on Friday and then on Saturday I took it easy on the treadmill, only doing what felt comfortable, not pushing myself. Loretta is new at running - just started a few weeks ago, but she has improved at a good rate, so our workouts are different at this time. I was planning to do repeats of 4 mins running and 1 min walking. She was ready to do 12 mins running and 1 min walking. So we each set our timers and started together than did our own paces/times. Because we were running in a loop, we did run together for a few minutes here and there. I felt better than expected, so I ran 5 or 6 mins a few times instead of just 4 - yea! This run/walk reminded my why I like running again :)

Workout finished and still smiling - it was good day!

A week or so ago, I was still okay with the treadmill - now when I think about running on the treadmill, I want to quit this whole plan. Though I will force myself to use the treadmill when needed, whenever the weather is warm enough, I will be outdoors - I am so much more 'alive' when I run outside.

You don't get this* on a treadmill.

*View, feeling, joy, connection with the creator, peace - it's all there!