Running on snow and eyeing up the year ahead

I started up my training for the 2010 season just before Christmas and have been building up the miles and time on feet. I found that running on snow whilst up in Scotland meant I had to cut back my mileage aspirations and change them to time on feet aspirations. Cumbernauld, where I was staying, was, like most of Scotland, snow bound so 9.5 mile fast trail runs turned into 1hr 30 mins events as I worked hard through knee deep snow in places on the moorland around the local country park. I used to live in arctic Sweden and love the snow. Soft and fluffy or hard and icy. It's all good. I can see from Ian B's and John K's blogs that they don't share my love here though. I can't understand it. Snow is great to run on, much better than pavements. :-)

I had a great 14.5 mile run around the Trossachs with Stan B and John Malcolm just before Christmas. Nice powdery snow and a hilly circular trail with good company and crisp blue skies. What more could you ask for? But my munro bagging, microspike wearing ambitions came to nothing when a brief but sudden kidney / UT infection hit me on the 27th, putting me out of running action for a few days. C'est la vie. All I can do is read about Pete Duggan's exploits in microspikes and gaze lovingly at how to put them on now that I am back in snow-less MK.

What's coming up first racing wise then this year? The 45 mile Wendover to London Country to Capital race is in less than 2 weeks. Drew Sheffield and John Millen should be running it so it'll be a good chance to catch up with them as we pound out the miles. Before that there's a sneaky wee hilly multi-terrain 5 miler in the Wendover Woods. Stoating down a clay mud forest trail then back up another one as fast as possible. Superb fun. 2010 here I come!