2017 - Wintry running and lots of plans

The weather gods decided that today would be a good day to remind us that winter is upon us. But we runners are not to be deterred. Running buddy, Connie, and I have been running hills on Wednesdays and, by gum, run hills we did laughing at the 11 degrees and falling snow all the way.  Our one concession to the weather was to avoid roads (leery of winter drivers) and, instead, did repeats on Boomerang Hill behind NIST.  Taz was a bit perplexed by all of our running up, turning around, running down, turning around, and heading back up again - but he sure does love being out and about.

Taz, wondering why we human are so slow going uphill

 One reason for forging ahead with the hill workout: big plans for 2017! As you may recall, last year I embarked on a new quest: run a trail in every state between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017. Well, last year I only checked 13 states off the list. Very fun adventures one and all, but barely a dent in the states list.  I hope to make an even bigger dent in the list this year; if I don't get all of the remaining 37, I shall extend the quest into 2018. It's been a fun one, too fun to bail on if the 50 in two years isn't quite achieved. That said, here's what we are looking at so far for 2017:

• Southeast states this spring. Running buddy, Randall, is from South Carolina and has a lighthouse run she loves to do along the shoreline. She says spring is the best time to run in the southeast; thus the springtime southeast tour plan was hatched. We haven't laid out the exact route but I hope to run South Carolina, perhaps North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama - plus a state or two or three or more on the way there and back.
• Hawaii - sometime while Kendall's bro & wife are there at their condo on the Big Island.
• Alaska -perhaps with the same Kendall bro & wife who are talking about a road trip to The Last Frontier this summer.
• We will, of course, be making more trips to Petoskey throughout the year - hopefully via winding routes and more trails. One trail I am keen on running that is not all that far out of the way from Boulder to Petoskey is the Ohio & Erie Towpath trail in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Within Michigan, I have my eye on the North Central State Trail - a 62-mile trail that runs from Gaylord to Mackinaw City by way of Cheboygan and Lake Huron. I've been wanting to run that trail since I turned 62...better late than never!
• Closer to home, a quick trip to the Dakotas is in order, I'd say. A few years ago I ran the northern portion of South Dakota's Mickelson Trail (during the Mickelson Trail marathon). I figure the southern portion would be a fine trail for checking off South Dakota. And if we're in South Dakota, we'd might as well hop on up to North Dakota...lots of good trail territory there!

 Other than trails, the only other running plans I have for 2017 are to run daily, to train for the Bolder Boulder, and to reach 74,704.65 lifetime miles - 3 times the earth's circumference. As of the end of 2016, I was 1,586.15 miles away from that goal. Thus I run - happily! - in our winter wonderland!