Been Away So Long

So it's now been 2 months since my last post.  2 months!  Wow, I need to get my butt in gear.
Well, I've pretty much filled those 2 months with running.  And working.  And sleeping.  And then some more running.  Such is my exciting life!
One nice run that I did want to post about was a 23 miler a couple of weeks ago on the Voyageur course.  I started at the zoo, ran out for about 2 hours and ran back.  I really like that course because there's a bit of everything.  Even though I prefer running technical single track over anything, it's nice to break it up a bit with some easier ski trails and even some road.  The Voyageur course offers all of those things.
Starting down at the zoo means a long climb up to the Spirit Mountain ski hills.  A nice thing about this is that you simply can't start your run out too fast, the climb won't let you.
The trail along this section was pretty dry as our low snowfall winter has made nearly all of the local trails very runnable, very early in the season.  But as I got to the ski hills, I was surprised to see such massive piles of snow still on the mountain.

This particular guy was right in the middle of the trail and about 10 feet high.  I had to decide, do I go around it, or over it?

Over it.  Here's a view of the bay from the top of the snow pile.  Fortunately I was able to avoid any altitude sickness!
So I plugged on to Skyline and in to Magney-Snively park.  The notorious, swamp infested park west of Spirit Mountain.  Full of horse holes, and mud holes, and probably some R.O.U.S.s!  However, this year it wasn't too bad.  Not that I really mind getting wet and muddy on a trail run, in fact I welcome it, but I have to admit, it was nice to not have to deal with it too much.

So as you can see by the picture, it's a dry year at Magney!  However, this little puddle, and a few others were pretty much unavoidable so the usual outcome occured:

Nice and muddy shoes!  Just the way I like 'em!
After leaving Magney and hitting Skyline again to cross Beck's Road, I took the long down into the Mission Creek/Fond du Lac trails.  I really enjoy this section (heck, I like them all!) but it's nice to have a long down hill and then flatten out along the creek for a bit.  The trail does require a couple of Mission Creek crossings, which I decided to rock hop through this time.  On race day I just plow through the creek.

So from here I continued on for a bit until turning around and doing it all in reverse!  All in all it was a great day on the trails.

I couldn't agree more!