Bad Ideas of Winter

 We signed up for the annual IFTR 'Bad Ideas of Winter.' We love doing these events each winter to keep us motivated and working through the long, cold, dark months.

Isengard:

We kicked it off in December with the Isengard Challenge. We had to run on a treadmill for the duration of a 90 minute movie. This year I watched the live action Mulan, and Mark watched Gardians of the Galaxy.

Bonehead:

We kicked off 2023 with Bonehead. I did the group event for this one, and ran up Sunnyside, toward Bone. I made it to the dump, and back for a 10 miler. It was cold, but not nearly as bad as the negative temps we had last year. 

Lots of Boneheads out for the group event! 😆

Love this picture of the plow going by. The driver was probably thinking we were nuts!

It was plenty cold and frozen.

Mark couldn't make it to the group event because he had to work, so we had to do his Bonehead on our own. We ran (it was mostly a hike) up Little Kellys. He got off work a little early, so we started in the daylight. There was so much snow! We had just done the trail a week earlier, and we couldn't believe the difference. A few miles up, the fog rolled in, and we couldn't see a thing. It was just thick, white fog everywhere we looked. We couldn't even tell if we were still on the road. I kept stepping off the road onto the uphill bank next to it, and tripping. It was snowing the whole time, and add that to the dark we came back in, and it made for a great adventure. We saw that a moose had come up onto the trail after we had gone up. We were very cautious in the dark on the way back down. We had our bear spray out as we followed it's tracks. It's a little unnerving in the dark. We finally saw where it left the trail, but we never actually saw it. So fun to run back down the last couple miles.

Snowing, but still daylight when we started.

We saw so many deer! They were all down low because of the crazy amount of snow.

I love this trail in the snow!

The trees were so pretty all covered in snow.

This was the foggy part. We couldn't see a thing for a couple miles each way.

Trying to run back down when you can't see anything is fun. We were tripping all over the place.

Still snowing, but now dark!

The last couple miles are super fun to run down. I have a hard time keeping up with Mark on the downhills, but I wasn't about to be left out there by myself in the dark. I was flailing all over the place trying to keep up. 😂

Yeti Spaghetti:

We skipped the group event for Yeti Spaghetti this year. It's all the way down in Soda Springs, and my back hadn't been doing great, so I didn't dare sit in the car that long. We needed a longer distance anyways, so we did a half marathon around Cider Bend instead. That's the longest run we've done on our property, and it wasn't too bad. We both just listened to podcasts, and talked to the donkeys every time we ran by the corrals.

The Long Night:

This is one of my favorite events of the year, but we had to miss it this year, because we had a 50k in Boise the same weekend. We did the minimum requirement on our own. We had to do a 10k in the dark. We did it at night around Cider Bend. The donkeys are so cute, and run along the fence with us when we go by. 

The Long Night at Cider Bend.

They were probably wondering what on earth their crazy humans were doing.

Soup in the Snow:

Another favorite of the year. I ended up with a stress fracture at the Wilson Creek 50k, so I couldn't run Soup in the Snow this year. I picked a good year to not be able to do it, because it was the worst snow conditions they have had in the 8 years it's been an event. Steph and I stayed at the trailhead keeping the fire going, getting the food ready, and timing, while everyone was out for a brutal 9 miles. The times were twice as long as last year. In some places the snow was waist deep, and so powdery, it couldn't be packed down. The runners had no idea they would be out there for that long, so they were hungry, thirsty, and exhausted by the time they got back. 

I love that there are this many crazy people who come to suffer in the snow! 😆

They're off!

Here they go! It was rough right from the start!

Steph and I hung out at the trailhead and sampled all the good food! 😂

Steph kept the fire going while I took down times.

Mark was out on the trail having a great time.

😮😮😮

Jeff-Mark-Jenn-Georgina

Mark's pushup on the bridge.

Mark was pretty sore the next day. Even his shoulders from trying to keep his balance. Crazy year, that's for sure, but we need the snow really bad, so no complaints from us!

It was a great season of Bad Ideas. Can't wait until next year.