Yes, I still run in the cold. Winter in to Spring.

 

This is my 3rd winter running and I have to appreciate some of the unique scenes I was missing when I only ran when the weather was warmer.

This is Swayze falls in our local (10-15 minute drive from home) provincial park.  Also called Selfie falls because everyone likes to take a Selfie in front of it!

This is at Morningstar Mill which is on the Shorthills boundary.

I decided to take Paul and the kids on a wintery walk once the trail was packed down.  H was not a fan.

At Paleolithic falls (in between them, that's not just snow and ice-it is a frozen waterfall!

At Selfie/Swayze Falls.  They did think it was cool they could walk right up to the icicles.

H lost his will to walk on the way back, so we tried to use his snowpants as a sled and a stick as a rope.

I did finally get to go skiing this winter!  It is very much midwest skiing, rather than the west coast mountain skiing I'm used to, so even though I'd not been on skiis in about 20 years, by the end of the day I was on the double diamond/ expert hills.  This is the view from the top.

H finished up his winter skating lessons.  He's decided to take a break for spring.

Paul went to Boston and competed in a curling bonspeil and won the entire competition with his team!

I participated in a race here called "Around the Bay".  It's 30km around a bay of Lake Ontario.  

I came in 2 hours 58 minutes and 48 seconds which I'm thrilled with because my goal was to finish in under 3 hours and I had several injuries that happened during my training. Luckily they mostly stayed at bay during the race.  I learned my lesson and replaced my road shoes and am much less injured these days excepting a case of plantar facitis in my foot that comes and goes.

There were some birthdays to celebrate this spring.  My grandma turned 95!

C turned 17 -he wanted fish & chips and donuts for his birthday.

V is getting ready to donate her long hair for children's wigs so I wanted to get a picture beforehand. I cannot believe how thick and wavy her hair has gotten! Much more like her dad's side of the family than mine.

We ended the curling season on top!  We only had January off due to Covid (last season we only curled until Christmas then shut the club down).  Paul and I and our team took first place on the Club Championship league (the competitive league) and my team took first place in the Industrial League (a more social league).  

I took some people from my run club on a 30 km run a few weeks after the race (we were already trained to go 30 km) on the Bruce trail version of the Laura Secord run. I'd done the Friends of Laura Secord version before, so this was a bit different.  We all earned a badge from the Bruce trail conservancy for our efforts.  

At the end of the first semester, in early February C and I were to go to Texas to visit friends.  They had Covid and we rescheduled for Easter weekend.  3 days before we were to leave, C started to feel terrible.  Yep, he tested positive for Covid-19. Not only were we disappointed to have to cancel the trip, but C was one of the few kids at his school still wearing a mask now that mask mandates have been lifted and he's not been working since the end of December, so it had to have been from school as he goes no where else.  Poor kid!  His isolation period ended Sunday. We'd talked to my mother in law who had offered to make Easter dinner on Monday (we get Good Friday and Easter Monday off here) if we were all better.  As C finished up his illness, Husband tested positive :(.  Luckily curling season is over and they hand quick Covid tests out at the grocery store like free samples. 3 of us have been boosted and the other 2 have had their first two vaccines.  

I tested myself (I have the most exposure to both of them) on the Monday before Easter (when C tested positive) then the following Monday (I was spending time with a friend and was 7 days since exposure-Husband had had symptoms for 2 days and we were closer than 6 feet apart unmasked) and both were negative.

V started to get stuffy and a cough on Thursday/Friday. Husband picked her up from school on Friday and on Saturday we tested her and myself (the CDC calendar suggested because of my exposures whether I had symptoms or not I should take a test on Saturday), we were both negative.  She felt quite crappy over the weekend (there is a bad cold going around her school-2 years of no exposure to germs will do that). But we tested her again on Monday and she felt much better and she is still negative, so we let her go to school. She was begging so that she could participate in a debate about the pros and cons of the oil pipeline out west. That girl never wants to miss an opportunity to argue!

So. fingers crossed but I think the Casa De Covid is no more.  Just in time, too. I am running the Toronto Marathon next Sunday and want to be ready.  This week will be a relaxed taper week, then Sunday is the marathon, then a relaxed recovery week as the following Saturday is a nighttime 25K trail race that I'm doing with a friend.