The Frozen Turtle Run.....hilarious frozen fun.

 Saturday morning--6am: I am curled up in my quilts with my two cats laying on me purring away and what do i do? Get up, have coffee, breakfast and head out into a VERY, very cold dawn to run a 10 mile run with my friends and the Indiana Trail Runners. Here was what greeted me in the dawn outside my apartment that morning. A lovely sky and moon. My friend Christy Victor picked me up in her nice warm van and we were off!

 As we drove I just wanted to capture the pretty dawn and sunrise and had brought my actual camera this time instead of relying on my camera phone only as that runs out of power quite quickly and then I miss important stuff. The fields were snowy, the morning quiet as a Monday church. Pink clouds bathed the sky in beauty.

Here is my poem to this morning and day:

 I wake to rise
Cast upon a sea of white
moon glow to dawn rise
begins to bathe the world
with pink-laden skies.
The hills and fields
warming a bit to light
quiet hush and sweet blush
This, then, is my life
                                                      I greet it with emboldened heart
                                                      Look smiling to the day
                                                      And bring my dreams unraveled into the journey of today.
                                                                                                                             H.Rose
 

I was so happy about the pretty morning I took a lot of pictures. Christy was nice enough to stop once to get a good picture of the sunrise. I was looking forward to this even if it was cold it was still a wonderful thing to be doing on a Saturday morning!When we got there we met Erin, Evan, Chris Neoh, Cheryl Hickock, Val and Melanie and Maggie and some others from the ITR including Terry Fletcher, the "master of ceremonies" for this little jaunt. There were some people going 20 miles and some going the whole 50K!!
 

 We ended up with a group of about 40 brave souls ready to spend the day freezing in the woods...for FUN! Crazy. But awesome too.

 Everyone was in good spirits and let me take pictures. Hope they don't get sick of my picture taking but I love to document these fun activities! And I LOVE writing about them. 

 So then Terry made some announcements and we were off and running into the freezing morning. I had worn approximately 50 layers including two pairs of gloves, two hooded sweatshirts and a hat, two pairs of socks, a long sleeve under my hoody. I must be part reptile..i get COLD!

 Here was my first picture of the woods. It was so pretty out and I was glad I had brought my camera. The snow was packed down pretty good in some places because the "fasties" had run there already in force. I actually stopped at one point and let a bunch of them go on because I was just NOT going to be very fast in this. And I wasn't wanting to race. I wanted to just hang out with my friends and have fun. No reason to race through this.






The trail wound through the woods, up hills and down hills, sometimes packed, sometimes icy and sometimes fluffy snow that drove us a bit crazy as there was no way to run through it without looking like we had just had one too many whiskeys. We made jokes about being drunk...one thing led to another and pretty soon we escalated to 7 drunken dwarves.  Val and I decided we were sniffly 1 and sniffly 2. I couldn't stop sniffling pretty much the whole time.

After we had been running for awhile the sun came out and WOW was it pretty!! I started going crazy taking pictures because the sun on the snow was amazing looking. I could not believe my luck that I was out here with friends doing this great thing. Hard yes. But worth every little twinge in my ankles and ache in my legs. 

As I said the sunshine on the snow was gorgeous. And we were having a good time... working hard on that snow and trails but mostly a lot of good conversation and laughing. At one point Erin completed a magnificent swirling save from falling and I thought it was the best thing I saw all day!






I wish I could live over here and just run out of my house in the morning to be greeted by THIS!
And in the fall when the leaves are on the trees this place glows like a golden cathedral. 

 I saw this and it was just too weird not to take a picture of. A scarf or snake maybe? Anyway it was cool that the snow draped over the branch like that. Guess you had to be there.

 Here was one of the lakes frozen over. I thought it was lovely. The day was also starting to warm up a bit. just...a bit.

I turned to take a picture of Christy, Val and Melanie running. They looked so tough! 

 More purty snow pictures. At this point my legs were about done for and we still had 5 miles left to go! OY! I worked very hard to focus on the fun and beauty of the woods and not so much on my ouchy ankles which were exhausted from having to twist and turn all over in the snow.It was a great core workout!

Final snow picture...the second lake.

And last but not least:

For your viewing pleasure...or whatever...here is a short video of me running and Christy and I talking that apparently my camera decided to take all by itself unknown to me. Just funny...you can laugh if you want to. I won't take offense. :-) 


And there was the Frozen Turtle Run...except we didn't get to catch a dragon. Ask Erin if you are confused.