Snow & Ice Filled Outdoor Weekend

Ha Ha Haaaaa, I laugh in the face of inclement weather!

On Friday night this past weekend, the DC area got hit with a small snow and ice storm. This kind of weather isn't really new to us, and really we got a lot more ice than snow. That didn't deter or stop me from being outside all weekend training though!

On Saturday I got up and decided to get my long training run in despite the conditions, and braved the icy, snow covered paths for a 17 mile run. Also, I decided to use my trail shoes for the run to provide a bit more grip and traction than either of my road running shoes could provide. That turned out to be a very good choice, because running on the ice and snow in those shoes worked a lot better than I anticipated, and I only had one close call! I did however manage to land my right foot into a big icy puddle that was hidden by snow with 4 miles left in the run...that was not so fantastic.

On Sunday I got talked into going on a long ride with a friend of mine out in the Leesburg area. The ride covered 43 miles, and the terrain was 90% snow/ice and 10% muddy gravel, all on rolling country roads. Due to the surface conditions the pace was far slower than any other ride I've done, and by far the sketchiest ride I've ever done as well. It's pretty hard to steer and stay upright when your tires have little traction and you're sliding all over the place! I fell twice, but they were both pretty low speed. In fact almost everyone on the ride fell at least once, and it was more comical than anything else because we were going so slow, and then all of a sudden, someones rear tire would go sliding out from under them and down they went. We did get in some decent climbing though, and were also able to really test out our cold weather gear to see how it held up in the elements for 4-5 hours.

I'm pleased to say my gear and brand new jacket held up great, and I was perfectly fine the entire ride. Everyone else on the ride was shocked at how clean my bright red jacket was compared to how dirty everyone else's clothing got. I guess it does pretty well at shedding mud in addition to its waterproofing characteristics. My feet and legs got really muddy though, and my bike looked like a frozen brown popsicle when we were done. All in all though, I had a great time, met a lot of new people, and got to ride my bike for 4 hours! We followed the ride up with some pizza and beer at Fireworks Pizza in Leesburg, perfect end to quite an adventure! Here's a ton of pictures from yesterday's snow/ice ride, don't let inclement weather keep you indoors, enjoy! [Click the pictures to see the bigger versions]

Some of the group [and part of my glove] about 10 miles in.

Me, before I got all muddy.

The group cautiously heading down an icy hill.

[I'm in the red jacket]

Nice rolling snow covered terrain.

The snow-plow driver probably thought we were nuts!

Climbing a muddy section.

More climbing.

My dirty shoe covers afterwards.

But my jacket was clean! [Except for the zipper, I can't explain that]

My muddy, ice covered bike afterwards!

Again, muddy ice had formed all over the place!

And here's the ride summary [click 'view details' to view more]