Windham Pipeline Trails

Earlier this year I thought I had run the wettest run ever. Today definitely beat that. Surprisingly for a late December day it wasn't really that cold, which is part of the reason it was so wet. Temperatures had been above freezing for about 16 hours prior to my run this morning, and it had probably been raining for about 6 hours, so that made for a lot of slush, running water and slippery ice.

Blaine had recently mentioned a run on the trails near where he lives in Windham and I wanted to check them out so I met him at 7 this morning for a run. We hoped to get in 15 miles but as soon as we hit the trails it became clear that 15 miles of slush and ice would not be fun. That's not to say that it was all bad running, but I knew that 15 miles would take a very long time in these conditions. I decided I'd be happy to get in a two hour run regardless of the distance.

After about a half mile of road we got onto a gas pipeline trail that had seen a fair amount of snowmobile traffic before the rain and Blaine assured me it was in good condition yesterday. We followed the pipeline trail southeast for almost 6 miles, had we stayed on it we could have gone into Westbrook (the pipeline crosses the Presumpscot River and runs into Portland). There were numerous trails branching off of the one we followed and in better weather it will be fun to explore this area, but for today we stuck to the relatively well traveled path.

I was glad to have some company for the run today, because had I been on my own I surely would have turned back early, gone home and crawled back into bed.

Oh, it's also worth mentioning that I had some pain in my right ankle after yesterdays run. Perhaps a mild sprain. I didn't notice anything during the run but last night it was sore, and then felt pretty tight this morning when I first got up. Everything was fine during the run today but I was in a fair amount of pain after, enough to ice my ankle and take some ibuprofen. Feels like a strain on the Calcaneofibular ligament, I'd never heard of that before but there is a label pointing to exactly the spot that hurts in this picture. I'm not too concerned, hopefully a day off from running tomorrow will help.

time: 1:55:01
distance: 11.63 miles
pace: 9:51

weather: mid 40's, steady rain

conditions: wet ice and slush, sloppy and slippery

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 315 with screws, Smart Wool socks, short tights, t-shirt, jacket, hat, gloves