Saturday, November 20, 2010

Musings of a Sled Nerd

So Jiggs and I are getting to know each other. Jiggs being the Little Orange Sled That Could. Besides trying to jump the gun a bit on the downhills, he's the perfect little plastic partner to set me on my course to insanity, I mean serenity. The dogs are loving the role reversal game. Agate likes to run along side with Jiggs, scoping out the situation. She is very clear, though, on her feelings about pulling a sled: "Don't look at me, Dude. I've done my time on the chain gang. What part of retired don't you understand? And you call that a sled? That's a plastic little scoop with a 15# weight in it. Geez. Amateurs."
Sigh. No respect from the doglot.
Dave's been indulging me and taking me and Jiggs out. At night. In the wee frosty night. I think we've got the cold weather running thing down. Icebugs, check. Neck gaiter, check. Foot gaiters, check. Boyfriend that tolerates your mental lapses, check:
Jiggs has a new bumper sticker: "Will run for chocolate". We all have our vices....
"A man needs something he can hold on to
A nine pound hammer or a woman like you.
Either one of them things will do."
Thanks, Ray.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I swore I'd never do this.....

....running with a sled, that is. I distinctly remember running the Little Su 50K last year with Yvonne, looking at those fools, thinking, "those fools." Yup, now I'm one of those fools. Someone, you know who you are, convinced me that the Susitna 100-miler would be fun. So, here I am, signed up for Susitna, never having pulled a sled. Not to worry, Dave to the rescue. this weekend, we put our training sleds together and headed out on the trail, 6 inches of new snow on the ground. It wasn't long before Dave realized what he'd gotten into. "Where are we? And why are we in this handbasket?":
As Yvonne can attest to, running long distances in the snow with me as a running partner is not always easy, with my black cloud ready to arrive at any moment. But Dave swears he'll stuff me full of Reece's peanut butter cups and that's all it will take. Well, maybe a little more than that...
Running the Highland trail:
Notice there are no dogs around. They're way up ahead, laughing at their good fortune of free-running all winter while we pull the sleds. The two partners in crime. Still smiling- first run went off without a hitch. Well no major hitches, just some minors ones involving off-trail wanderings, thin ice and some healthy sled-kicking. Just working out the kinks.
Of course, my new friend, the little orange guy in the picture, needs a name. So if you see us out there, it's Me and Jiggs:
"Me and my friends in the park drinking beer underneath the tree
Lying on your back as the sun goes down, you know it's perfect 'cause you've got to leave.
On a Saturday night in a town like this I forget all my songs about trains
A bar with a jukebox you on my arm heaven and earth are pretty much the same.
And I'm not sure I can make you stay
Sun's going down it's the end of the day..."
Next up, finally a couple trip posts...
Later days....