January Running

 We kicked off January's running in sunny Arizona. That was a fun way to start the year! Then it was right back to the cold, ice, and snow.

IFTR Early Morning Runs:

We had some fun early morning runs in January.

We kicked it off with the Vanilla Ice, Ice Baby run at Community Park. We would run a lap, then someone would do the zipline. We did that for over 7 miles! 😂

Dan, Jennifer, Tricia, Carney, Jeff, and Jeff.

Dan, Jennifer, Stacey, Jenn, Tricia, Seth, Carney

The next early morning one was the Gem State of Mind. We met at Gem Lake Pond, which was a new area for these runs. It was a fun 5 miles, and I want to go back in the day time so I can actually see it.

Gem Lake Pond
Dan-Jennifer-Tricia-Carney

The third run was around the river. It was Me, Carney, Christina, and Wes. Most people were still recovering from The Long Night, so we took it nice and easy. No pictures.

The final early morning run of January was up Blackhawk. I kept running all the way to the water tower before I stopped for a break. I was slow, but I just tried to not walk until I made it to that point. 

We had a good turn out for this one. It got pretty windy up on the hill.

Women's Runs:

We either didn't have a Women's Run the first Monday of the year, or I missed it while I was in AZ, I can't remember. But the second one was a nice run along the Sunnyside Canal.

Sunnyside Canal
Amanda-Stacey-Johanna-Tricia-Bobbi-Larissa-Marnie

The third one was The Long Night, but that'll be in my Bad Ideas of Winter post.

The final Women's Run of January was at the Butte. We ended up with a beautiful night. It was a hold tight to the chains and slide kind of an adventure. 

The top of the Butte.

It was almost a full moon, and everything looked so pretty.

Pocatello:

Jenn had heard that the Over the Top trail was totally clear of snow, so we decided to go down to Pocatello and run. The reality was not only lots of snow up top, but TONS of ice on the trail. We ended up hiking all but a few miles of it. Even with us just walking, there were a lot of wipe outs. Carrie fell nine times, and Jenn S. had some good falls as well. The ice was crazy! We had a great day with a light snow falling on us for the majority of the time. Even though it wasn't what we wanted when we set out, it ended up being a great adventure!

Jenn-Jenn-Daniel-Carrie-Tricia

This part was icy, but we soon ended up in some nice powdery snow towards the top.

We made it to the top!

Down the other side, and back to the slick ice!

We stopped at the Blackhawk BBQ Truck for a much deserved lunch!

The Greenbelt:

I had a couple nice runs around the river with Jenn. We did 13 miles for one of them, so Jenn could get her Strava half marathon for January.

Everything was very frozen.

Bone Road:

I hadn't talked to Steph since before we went to AZ, so we needed a good catch up. Mark, Steph, and I did a run up Bone Road and then went to pizza for lunch.

Yay for talking so much you don't even realize you're running up hill!

Wolf Flats: 

Mark and I did our last long run before our 50K in AZ. We ran 14 miles along the river from Stinking Springs through Wolf Flats. On the way out it was windy and snowy, and we were in our own little mini blizzard. On the way back, we had great weather. For about 3 miles of the run, we got in some pretty deep snow, but otherwise the road was really great for this time of year. We saw three bald eagles, three regular eagles, and tons of dear. It was a really great run!

Heading into the storm.

An eagle in the tree.

We had a few miles of pretty deep snow!

January running is always interesting in Idaho because of the winter weather, but we got some really good ones in this month.