Dusting off the Yaktrax :)

My blog post for 01.09.11 stated that I’d bought Yaktrax just in case it was icy during the ultra. It turned out to be the best purchase-as-insurance-policy-against-snow, as I haven’t needed to use them until today! However, 16cm of snow fell here yesterday, and so the Yaktrax finally came out of their box and, frankly, came into their own during the 20 mile training run I had scheduled for this week. It took a few tentative miles before I trusted them, but soon the icy stretches were taken relatively close to my normal easy training pace. They couldn’t give me wings and enable me to stride through 6″ of snow (which was still lying in places on the Downs) effortlessly, but they made today’s run possible rather than having to retreat to the gym and face over 2 and a half hours on the treadmill (bleurgh!). And it was a beautiful scene: the Avon Gorge, in particular, looked fabulous coated in snow and made a spectacular backdrop for the Suspension Bridge.

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