Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Birthday Run


It was my birthday recently, and my birthday is celebrated with a run equaling my age in kilometres. I do this to release endorphins so I do not fall into a clinical depression. I am unsure if it is my birthday that causes the spring depression or if it is the absolute grayness and cold windiness of April.
Anyways, I chose the bay view escarpment as my destination. My birthday fell midweek and thus was venturing out by myself and knew that if I got into trouble my mother could always come and pick me up. It was to be a mix of trail and country roads with only minimal pavement. Complete unknown about the state of the trails. Made attempts to find out the state of, but all my Intel was inconclusive. In my option if I call a tourism office they should be able to answer on the trail conditions. I am sure they are well versed in snowmobile conditions. Stupid moter sports.
So the photo shows a rather nice section of the trail, most of it was knee deep snow. The trouble with the knee deep snow wasn't so much the snow depth but the fact it obscured the trail thus I spent a considerable amount of time just standing and looking in circles for the trail. There was also the issue of what lies beneath the snow, or rather what doesn't. Snow has a nice ability to create drifts where no land lies under. Thus, when vaguely following the trail one may accidental almost sink through a drift to a open crevice. Almost.





In the beginning I made a noble attempt to keep my feet dry as my wool running socks are threadbare. Thus I was wearing regular running socks which do not do much for insulation. I made a bridge so I would not have to wade through this stream, although I was soon running though flooded fields, and in fact flooded sections of road. Pictured in very minor as compared to another section. 


This horned beast was waiting for me. I was warned that I was to give livestock a wide berth, but really. I wasn't getting any closer, cause that isn't livestock that is a trip to a trauma centre in a helicopter if I don't bleed out first. No thank you. Tress passed on another farmers flied until I saw the farmer who gave me permission to bypass the official trail in favor of his flied until such a time I didn't feel like my life was in danger. I might add, I grew up on a large scale beef cattle operation. I am very familiar with livestock, and again they are not livestock but horned beasts.



Overlooked on the trail and ran beside the tank range. Spoke to an employee who said if  wanted to run on the base all I had to do is ask. He spoke of a 48k loop that is run regularly. IN the future I definitely want to run it. Slightly conflicted as when the base was established lives were torn apart and it was instill into me that the base/ Military will do as they wish. Actually this may be a reason I am anti-establishment.


1 comment:

West Grey Runner said...

If I had of known you were going to do this section whilst snow covered I would have strongly advised not doing it or perhaps topping up your life insurance first.