@Challengers, I hear from @lizhartman that the Tortoise & Hare course is slippery and treacherous today with the snow and ice from last night. So, some recommendations:
If you don’t need one of the trail courses (Tortoise & Hare, Danby Down & Dirty, Thom B, and Forest Frolic) to complete your FLRC Challenge, I recommend staying off them.
If you must run one of those courses, consider waiting a few days, since it’s supposed to warm up on Friday and rain on Saturday, which may improve the conditions. (Of course, it could also make them worse if the temperatures don’t rise enough.)
If you are hell-bent on running one of those courses, consider supplementing your trail shoes with micro-spikes or wear screw shoes for added traction. If the footing is still too iffy, drop back to hiking. Remember the FLRC Challenge motto: “Cover the ground.” Speed doesn’t matter when it comes to completing the distance.
Stay safe out there, and please, do report in here on trail conditions for the next week—we’re almost at the end of the year!
Thom B had about an inch of powder this morning but was very runnable with good footing and beautiful snow on the trees. If it rains this weekend however a lot of these sections may become icy!
The Forest Frolic course was beautiful today, but please heed Adam’s advice to go easy and think about using micro-spikes. Take special care on Hauck Hill Road from the start as it drops down into the junction of trails to the Virgil Mtn Loop. There are lots of frozen ice flows on the downhill part of the road. Covered with a few inches of wet snow and, woo boy, it’s super slick as I can attest, ouch!
Just a heads-up that there may be snow or freezing rain later today, @Challengers, so best to get any trail runs in this morning if you can—stay safe out there!
I got caught in this on the Frolic course. The first loop went okay. The second loop was trickier because a thin layer of snow covered the ice on the forest roads and powerline trail.