We'd hoped to ski today but there was a skate race at Highlands, and Hardwood Hills suggested rock skate skis (one of the few types missing from our quiver). So we decided to wait for a little more snow to fall, and instead we joined Gary Black to run the Milton Quarry Loop.
Gary had posted this run on the Run Trails Ontario Facebook page because he hoped to find a couple of running companions while he was home from Ottawa. It caught on like wildfire, and 16 runners showed up this morning! It was a fun, chatty run. 'Bent, DoubleDown_on11 and WandAR were the other Attackpointers; I recognized almost everyone from their Facebook photos and had met most of them in real life before anyway.
Thanks to Alexa (DD11's wife) and Barbara for the wonderful Christmas goodies. 'Bent and I went home by way of The Shed to get lattes and paninis. I'm feeling pleasantly fatigued now. I've purposely done less running over the past couple of months to give myself some recovery time so we'll see how my body responds to suddenly doing 43+ km over the past 28 hours. The good news is that my gimpy foot didn't squawk out there - at least, no worse than it does when I'm walking around the house.
DoubleDown_on11 and I were talking about how the Milton Quarry Loop compares to the full Hockley Loop. It's almost the same length - about 2 km longer, and the time/km is similar. Today's loop was relatively flat but quite technical. It was great training for agility, strength, balance and mental focus. It would be soooo easy to turn an ankle so I was uber-cautious. Hockley Loop, on the other hand, is great training for hills and strength. Both loops have some smooth sections where you can take a mental break and just run. I look forward to doing this one again!