A second blog post in a day? Shaman, you're spoiling us.

I'll start this post with a public service announcement:

"Spikes are not 100% effective"

After a couple of near-death experiences on my morning run, I can share this knowledge with the Internet. Spikes don't work that well on smooth ice. Unfortunately for me, pretty much the whole path around the lake was covered in smooth ice.

But wait! Do you see what I see, in between the ice patches? My friends, that brown stuff is not another shade of ice. It's not dog poo either, resurfacing after the snow melted. It is, in fact, the ground. Earth. Dirt. Pineneedles. Twigs.

This, and the bird song (oh, the beautiful bird song), and the fact that it's still light at 4 in the afternoon are good signs. Signs that we are, in fact, heading towards spring. We might still have 2 months of icy rain, slippery pavements and freezing wind ahead of us, but the birds have spoken. Sooner or later, spring shall come, and it shall be glorious! Rejoice!

So how did my morning run go, other than that I unwittingly auditioned for Disney on Ice, the part of Bambi?

I ran 10 amazing kilometres. That used to be my usual distance session, nothing to write home about, but I am ecstatic. The last time I ran 10 km was over a month ago. Granted, I only ran at a spectacular 6,30 min/km. I know, I should tattoo a hare on my forehead. But I enjoyed it immensely, scary as it was. I let my thoughts drift (even though they never drifted too far. Rather, they focused on which kind of ice was the most slippery. The grey kind? The yellow kind? The brown kind?).

Once I got home, I attacked my foot with ice, massage, stretching and Voltaren. It doesn't seem to like my spikes. I don't blame it, I hate the spikes too. But they do give me the freedom to run in the woods on an icy winter day. Ineffective as they are.