OK, I’m Back

After laying off with this bum ankle for 10 days, I’m back.

We had a little snow on Monday, so I tried out the cross country skis. I have a long standing rule: I don’t buy cheap sh*t. But about 20 years ago – I was still in Jersey -- we had a good snowstorm and I wanted to try cross country skis. There was no place to rent them, so I put my rule on hold and bought a cheap set-up from Kenny Hollingsworth at Pelican Ski Shop in Whitehouse. Hagan skis and Salomon boots. Some no name poles. Got the whole outfit for $119. I still have them and they still work fine. Go figure.

So I dug the skis and stuff out of the boiler room in the basement, laced ‘em up and headed down the lane and up towards the Deep Run show grounds. There was only about four inches of snow, and that was just perfect. Making a track in deep snow is a pain in the butt and I just wanted to have little fun.

Drivers on Manakin Road did plenty of rubber-necking as I glided up along the fence in front of Bantry Hill’s cow pastures. They aren’t too used to seeing cross country skiers around here. I was being cool and just ignored them. Figured let ‘em gape. I did ok, too. Got the step-glide step-glide knack back pretty quickly. And boy it sure was exciting to be back on skis (any skis) again.

I was only out there for about forty minutes. Once around the show grounds, past the schooling rings, slid through the barn areas and down to Virginia Equine and the Clubhouse. Then I kicked off the skis, jumped a fence and came back through the woods. Skiing through the woods is fun because as long as the snow is fresh, you can go right up over logs and brush piles. And I did. When I got back to the house the ankle was fine. Still felt fine Tuesday, so I ran four miles with no problem.

I went out this morning to try the seven mile loop that I wrecked my ankle on a week and a half ago. It was a bright shiny morning with temps in the forties and no breeze. One of those perfect joyful mornings that make you glad to be on the sunny side of the sod.

Here's my rocky ditch

It was a delightful seven miles. No one came near to running me off the road. Maybe the neon orange vest had something to do with it. Nice rolling terrain had me grunting a bit on the up-hills and got to stretch the legs out good on the downs and flats. Got a good close-up of the rocks I was rolling around in the other night, too.

Saw Dave Hudnell in his truck when I got to the Hermitage/Manakin intersection. He once told me he almost hit me one night when I was running on Manakin Road in the dark. In the broad daylight, he just waved and cruised by.

I’m going to jump right back into the training schedule at the point I should be if I had no lay-off. That means I’ll do fifteen miles Sunday. I have been looking forward to this run since I first set up the schedule. I laid out a few point to point routes in the program, and this will be the first. I’m going to run from the farm out west to the town of Goochland. I keep hearing about a really good pizza joint out there that I'm dying to try and Kim’s going to meet me for lunch.

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