Wednesday 13 January 2010

Now it's black ice

Yesterday's slush & rain turned to ice & black ice today. Walking around Ilkley this morning was quite challenging with the roads as bad as the pavements. It seems that Bradford Council is now virtually out of grit.

Not many options for running. The track session was cancelled. I decided to head to Bolton Bridge & run in the Strid Wood, the advantage here was that I could wear my spikes. I'm still new to wearing spikes, this was only my second outing in them & it was much more icy than the first time I wore them.

It set off quite cautiously, trying to avoid patches of solid ice, opting for snow where possible. However, the further I ran the more confidence that I got that the spikes would grip on the ice. The technique for running in spikes on ice is very different to wearing normal shoes: it's important to land on the forefoot, especially going downhill & I was getting better grip on icy surfaces compared to snow or bare ground. Eventually I got so that I could run at close to normal speed.

There were very few people out in the wood today, but the few walkers who were there were having great difficulty staying upright and making any forward progress. I did get incredulous looks from them for running at full speed downhill on sheet ice!

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