Lovely Moonlight

This morning the frost was thick on our car and grass around the house. The thermometer read minus 5 degrees celsius, it was 05:50 and I was running!

It was absolutely beautiful. The moon was at about waxing Gibbous and 98% of it's disc was visible and was quite low in the sky. In fact, I ran in the shadow of the mountain until I got around the headland and it nearly blinded me. I left the headtorch on the doorstep there really was no need for it! A good morning, six miles in 50mins and 15 secs. There was no frost as I climbed up the coast road out of the glen, none at all. As soon as I had about fifty feet of height the frost disappeared and down came the hood and out came the hands (from my sleeves where they had been hiding).

I count myself very fortunate that a friend and colleague has left me their heart rate monitor and road bike to train with whilst they are away in the UAE on a contract. This should provide a little relief for the running muscles but still enable me to keep up the aerobic training. I found that my maximum heart rate seems to be around 193 BPM, my resting hear rate has dropped to about 50 BPM and to run six miles in fifty minutes it averages 164 BPM. All extremely interesting to you all I'm sure. I'm fascinated by it; however, I'm not going to let a sophisticated wrist computer dictate how I enjoy my running/cycling.

TTFN

Definitely Chilly!

Everything that had thawed or been pressed was frozen to ice this morning. The area in front of the house was like an ice rink! Sarah is not feeling well and I've taken the day to look after Zoe, we tried going to Lochcarron but had to turn back after several episodes of getting to fourth gear on the spot with the wheels spinning and the car began to slide backwards! Eventually, I found a place to turn and we made our way back down. The weather is beautiful - bright sunshine, blue sky etc, etc.

Slippery

The slushy, sugary snow that we finished the day with on Sunday froze in the -6 degree overnight temperatures creating amazingly slippery conditions this morning. Sarah and Zoe could not get to playgroup and they didn't get the hill open until mid-day.

Last night the slushy snow slid off the roof in mini-avalanches for an hour or so. I guess that as it froze it contracted and lost whatever adhesion it had and made a great whooshoing sound as it slid off the roof!