Varvel Family: December Running

Just like usual, December was a great month of running!

Women's Runs:

We had lots of festive Monday night runs in December. For our first one, we made Strava art. Amanda created a reindeer for us to run. So cute!

Bad picture, but a great time!

Look how cute our reindeer is!

For the next Monday night, we had our annual Christmas light run. We ran around Idaho Falls looking at all the fun light displays. There are some really cool houses out there!

Christmas light run!

The Walker house is one of our favorites to go by.

I love the giant Christmas tree they have in the front yard. It changes colors.

Our last run was awesome! We met at the falls, and watched the Deck the Falls light show that was projected on the waterfall. Then we ran around downtown looking at light. We ended with a picture with Santa! The best part was that Bailey was in town for this one! Yay!

We had some fantastic outfits!

Deck the Falls

Downtown lights.

Me and Bailey by the big tree at the friendship gardens.

If you can make it past our hideous outfits, please enjoy Bailey's cute belly.

Santa!

IFTR Early Morning Runs:

Dan started Friday morning runs at Community Park that work on speed. I have loved them! The first one in December was called Chutes and Ladders, and it involved some good hill work. Loved it!

Jen-Tricia-Mark
Chutes and Ladders on that hill behind us.

The next one was called Cruise Intervals. It was a great one, and it kicked my butt!

The path was a little bit icy!

Cruise interval group!

We did a 3rd one called Compromised Tempo, and I loved that one too. No picture though.

We had an early morning Winter Solstice run as well. We did a 10k on Thunder Ridge. Bring on the longer days!

Winter Solstice run!

We had a full moon.

Ashton:

I kicked off December with a drive up to Ashton to run the rail trail with Joyce. I love that area, and I can't wait to snowshoe up there.

We had a little bit of snow.

The rail trail follows above the river. It's so pretty!

Tricia-Joyce

Icy Palisades & Coccyx Hill:

Ashley organized a group run up Palisades. Little did we know that the whole trail was a sheet of ice! I've never seen the trail quite like that before. We made it to the lower lake before calling it quits. Meredith took a bad fall and landed right on her tailbone. Mark took a couple bad falls. There was one point that I just sat on my butt and slid down a hill. It was crazy! We had 8 miles we still wanted to get, so we drove back to town and ran a road in the foothills by Thunder Ridge. We named it Coccyx Hill, in honor of Meridyth's poor tail bone. 😂 She stuck it out, and finished off all the miles with us too. Despite the change in plans, it ended up being a great run!

Starting up Palisades with a pretty sunrise.

This is solid, and very slippery ice. The whole trail was like this.

More icy trail.

Some of the group at picture rock.

After we called it quits on Palisades, we had a great 8 mile run to the windmills to finish off our miles.

Running with the windmills.

Peep the Tetons!

Michelle-Tricia-Meridyth-Mark

Trail Hollow:

On good weather days, Joyce is gonna try to come to IF for some mileage. We decided to do Trail Hollow. It was a cold, foggy morning, and we had a great run!

Joyce and Jen
We started in the dark with our headlamps. It was cold!

The fog was rolling all around us, and everything looked super cool.

We made it to the turn around gate!

Wolf Flats:

I needed a slow, steady, long run, so we hit Wolf Flats for 18 miles. It's hard to find places to get a lot of miles in the winter, but Wolf Flats is usually a good option. I was dreading this run, but it ended up being great! Great company and conversation made the miles fly by. We saw at least 10 eagles along the river, so that was a fun bonus.

Two eagles in the tree.

I love a good run with my Geagles!

Running up on another eagle in a tree.

West Tex Tour:

Joyce drove down for another Thursday mileage day. We decided to give her the 'West Tex Tour.' We even talked Steph into going into work late and coming with us. It was a fun morning. I love these ladies!

We ran down Eagle Pass road, up Trail of Bones, did part of Coyotes Infinite Loop, went across Kepp's Ridge, down Kepp's Road, and back up Eagle Pass. We saw two moose, at least six eagles, got in a bit of a mini blizzard, and had a little over 9 1/2 miles of fun!

We started in the dark with crazy wind and horizontal blowing snow. Once we got going the weather was mostly great.

I spy two moose! Can you find them?

Steph-Tricia-Jen-Joyce
We went down the River Sticks to show Joyce the overlook.

Jen always does these really cool jumping pictures. We watched her for awhile and them Steph and I tried one of our own. Hahaha, we were laughing so hard! 😂

When we were coming off the ridge, it got super windy and blew snow so hard into our faces. There was nothing we could do but put our heads down and press on. It was hard to see, because it was pelting our eyes. In only lasted a little while, and then the weather turned good again.

Finishing the Eagle Pass climb back to the cars.

Joyce made us the cutest Christmas cookies! 😋

The Butte:

Mark and I had a very snowy, cold, run on the Butte. The sky was really pretty, but it was so cold that we didn't take many pictures. I thought I'd lose my fingers every time I took my hand out of my gloves.

Climbing the Butte.

Very snowy, slick rocks.

😍😍😍

So pretty!

Palisades:

We had the most beautiful hike/run up Palisades! Our intention was to snowshoe, but we ended up leaving them in the truck. The snow was soft, so even in the deep parts, it was easy to get through. We were the only ones on the trail, and it was so peaceful. I loved it!