February 4, 2015.
3 miles on Papermill Road at a very good clip right before dark. It's been a while since I've run there. It's an unpaved road southwest of the CDP of Lightstreet. The road was covered in snow, but only an inch or two of it, so the footing was fine until it got truly dark (as in, pitch black). I ran a mile out on that, turned around and came back. After that, I went back up the hill to the edge of the woods on Papermill Road and turned around. I only came close to slipping once. I must've had a lot of spare energy after practically not running for a week, because my time was in the 21:20s and my pace was 7:08/mile. My splits were all between 7:07 and 7:09.
February 5, 2015.
5 miles on some unpaved roads west of Orangeville. There's too much snow on the trails to do any serious running there. I started at the southern end of Lick Run Road and followed that to its end, a bit over a mile away. It climbed gently through the woods with Deerlick Run flowing in the valley below. It was slippery. At the end of the road I turned back and began descending. I slipped at mile 1.8, but there was no serious damage. On the way back, I made a long detour on Crouse
Hollow Road, which was a lot like Lick Run Road. My pace was 7:40/mile.
February 6, 2015.
I had wanted to explore some unpaved roads near Rohrsburg, but there was nowhere to park, so I ended up doing two miles on Upper Campus. I did the first mile on the fields, but that was completely pointless. Not only was there nearly a foot of snow, but there was a hard crust with soft snow under it, making serious running almost impossible. I did the second mile on roads, but did end it with a short sprint (i.e. moving slightly faster than walking pace) in the snow.
February 7, 2015.
4 miles on an unusual course. I started on the Robbins Trail, from the trailhead in Danville. I had been concerned that the snow would be too deep to do any serious running on trails, but it seemed to have been tamped down by passers-by for most of the way. It was still annoyingly slippery and uneven. I stopped for a little bit at the bridge over the frozen Mahoning Creek and then continued up the spur that parallels Mauses Creek. At the end of the spur, I crossed Pennsylvania Route 642 instead of turning around. The westbound section of the highway looked attractive. Too bad it was a state highway. Instead, I passed through Mausdale and followed Old Valley School Road almost all the way to Pennsylvania Route 54 and then returned. Back in Mausdale, I followed an interesting-looking side street called Kindt Road, but it pretty quickly dead-ended into Pennsylvania Route 642. Out of interesting options, I retraced my steps back to the Robbins Trail. I did the last mile as a fast clip, although I kept losing my balance in the snow.
February 8, 2015.
A 10K in Pennsylvania State Game Lands #58 this morning. The whole family (including the dog) drove out there, but I was the only one running. I set off along a gravel road running through the State Game Lands up Catawissa Mountain. It was a fairly steep road that climbed 90 percent of the way up there. In the first half mile, there were houses here and therer. After that, the road became more of a trail and fully entered the State Game Lands. After that, I spent the next 2.5 miles going progressively deeper into nowhere. There was a thin layer of ice on the "road", which would've made the going slow even if it has been thought. With the unending hill, my pace was well over 9:00s. I passed several snow-covered parking lots and once thought I heard a motor in the distance, but other than that, I encountered no signs of civilization for most of the way. However, at mile 3, near the top of the mountain, I encountered three radio towers. The view wasn't much, but I stopped there for two or three minutes before heading back down the mountain. The descend was faster, but more slippery. Where the climb up was a test of raw power and endurance, the climb down was a test of balance and maneuverability. I actually did manage to make it down the mountain without falling (unlike on Thursday's run) and returned to civilization. At the edge of civilization, I was confronted by two dogs, but they turned out to have more bark than bite. Once I was past them, it was a straight shot down to the starting point. Since there wasn't any ice there, I did about 6:00s on the last quarter mile.
My time was 55:17, about eight or so minutes slower than I would've done with flat ground and no ice. My pace was 8:54/mile overall and my splits were 8:53, 10:09,
9:32, 8:48, 8:48, and 7:52.
