Spring, URG and Jelly Donuts

Not much snow left in many areas

Well, spring is here. At least in Eastern Ontario. Hard to believe that the winter that wasn’t is now behind us. Sure, I expect that we’ll have a few flurries in the forecast over the next month or so, but I can’t imagine getting anything substantial that will stick.

Even with the warm conditions, there is still some snow and ice on some of the trails we’ve been running. Traction devices continue to be necessary at times with La Sportiva hobnails and Kahtoola MicroSpikes being the required ‘go to’ items when our snowshoes aren’t needed. If you run trails in the fall, winter or spring in Canada, these items are vital to your existence as a trail runner. And Dion snowshoes of course too!

Speaking of Dions, while it has been a relatively quiet winter of snowshoe running with the mild weather (anybody want a good deal on a whack of snowshoes?), there have been a number of races that have still happened. I wanted to give another shout out to Dion/SHA sponsored snowshoe racer Beth Primrose who finished 5th in the woman’s race at the World Snowshoe Championships this past weekend near Quebec City. Congrats Beth!

Upon returning to our car, we found a personalized URG comic on our dirty back window

So, with that, the snowshoe season is now officially over. For most of the winter I found myself longing for snow, hating where we live and resentful of the places that had good snow. With winter being a big period for snowshoe sales, snowshoe races, as well as conditions needed when I was training for the YAU100, this winter officially sucked!

I shouldn’t sound so negative though. This past weekend has seen some unseasonably warm weather, and I must say that I’ve enjoyed it. Running in shorts and a t-shirt instead of multiple layers is a nice treat and I do find myself looking forward to more of the warmer weather, instead of cursing it. One such run occurred on Sunday during a long, hilly run. We had a nice tour around Gould Lake Conservation Area. Sara had forgotten her traction devices, so unfortunately had to keep to the roads. That isn’t too bad though because the roads at Gould are all dirt and Everett Lane narrows down to practically a trail by the time you get to the end. I hit some of the regular trails then we met up at various points throughout our runs. We even bumped into EJ who was out for her long run, and I got to share the last 30 minutes of my run with her. We were fortunate enough to get an Ultra Running Guy comic drawn on the back window of Floyd the Forester. Not the sort of thing that happens every day!

Run to Eat vs Eat to Run? Eating Ella's jelly donuts in the car after a long run is a messy ordeal!

Inevitably during a long run, discussion turns to food and Sunday was no different. This time Ella’s jelly donuts were the topic of discussion. If you haven’t tried Ella’s Bakery in Harrowsmith, you should! We have been buying most of our wholewheat bread there as it’s the same price as in the grocery store, but is homemade, tastes better and uses real ingredients. Ella’s french bread is also fantastic, as is everything that she makes. Her jelly donuts and cinnamon buns are by far the best I have ever tasted. The only bad thing is that we probably end up consuming far more calories after a long run than we burn from running. Oh well, guess we’ll have to increase our long runs.

As for training, things are starting to go much better again. It’s been over 5 weeks since the Yukon Arctic Ultra 100 and I’m finally starting to feel like I’m getting my strength back. Runs have started to get longer and I’m stacking more longer run days together again. With the renewed strength, I’m starting to think about what race is next. I half considered hopping into a 50 km for fun in April, but we’ll have to see how things go. As for now, I’m happy enough to just be back starting to run more again. I’ve never been the type of runner who races often as a means of training, as I much prefer to train and prepare properly to race.