Snowshoe Crosstraining

 

Indianapolis got slammed by the largest snow storm of the season thus far this weekend. Sunday morning heavy snow moved it and as of print time, is still going strong. Adding this on top of the 3-4 inches left from a snow fall last week, by noon there was a decent layer of at least 8 inches or more in many places. Biking outside was a no go, and I wasn’t terribly interested in doing the spinning bike. But, I did commandeer my dad’s snowshoes a few weeks ago (he took a two year work contract in Abu Dhabi, so I didn’t think he would need them) and had been waiting for a chance to try them out.

So far this year the snow fall hasn’t been significant enough to allow comfortable use of the shoes. Today  definitely changed that. Indy has a few parks that I would like to snowshoe at (Holiday Park, Ft. Ben, Eagle Creek) but with the terrible road conditions, I instead hiked from my home over to Butler University’s campus. The campus has quite a few wooded sections with perfect trails for snowshoes, as well as open areas for cross country jaunts.

My neighborhood and the campus was beautiful.  I took a downhill trail through the woods and crossed the Central Canal to the Butler athletic field area. A few other folks were out for hikes, as were some cross country skiers.

 

After making a large loop over flat ground, I re-crossed the canal and made for home. After getting a once over by Butler Police (apparently looking for rouge sledders), I blazed my own trail up a steep hillside and made for home. I had hoped to go longer, but I was actually overdressed (I was starting to overheat) and my water resistant hiking pants had surrendered to the elements about 45 minutes before. In the end, I did 3.3 miles in an hour and twenty minutes. A track of the hike is here.

I had a blast on my first snowshoe attempt, although I would like my next outing to be in a more wooded and hilly area. I’ve read that shoeing is a popular method of mountain bike cross training up north, although my heart rate didn’t ever get very high. However, after I got home I realized that I did have that burning feeling in my legs and they were aching from the effort of the hike. I’m looking forward to more excursions, only with better pants, and less layers. Unfortunately, the high temperature for tomorrow is supposed to be -15, so although my office is closed, I am sticking to the spin bike.