Snow wins this round

A few days before Christmas, two feet of snow fell upon Boulder. A few days after Christmas, another foot piled on. The roads resemble two-track backcountry jeep roads more than neighborhood thoroughfares. After nighttime temperatures drop, the top layer turns to ice...very very slippery ice just waiting to slip up the unsuspecting early morning runner.

Today I ran from my house to meet running buddy, AndyE, to do hill repeats. Normally a 13 minute run to our rendezvous point, this morning was an exercise of 20+ minutes navigating over ice patches, snow mounds, dodging cars on snowbank-lined roads. AndyE and I ran about an hour of hill repeats trying first our usual hill (one repeat...hmm...does that make a "repeat"?) which involved fairly heavy traffic and a snow-narrowed road, then a steeper hill with less traffic but it was even more narrow and had icier patches and still a fair amount of traffic (two repeats), then a third hill that had the most traffic but was the most clear with even a bike path well-plowed (three repeats, three minutes each).

We ran back to the South Boulder Recreation Center where AndyE had parked his car. As soon as we arrived I announced I was fed up with this snow/ice running and marched in and signed up for a year's membership. I happened onto a pretty good deal too: by signing up both me and my husband, one of the memberships was half-price, and because my husband teaches in the Boulder school district we got an additional 15% off his membership, and they were running a special deal for an additional free month with the purchase of an annual pass. Cool! Better yet, immediately upon completing the paperwork, I jumped on a treadmill and ran the fastest three miles I've run in Boulder since the snow started to fly. This, I believe, is only the second time in my life that I, devoted outdoor runner that I am, have run more than a couple of minutes on a treadmill. The snow won.