Winter Duathlon

With the Winter Olympics about to start I got in the spirit by getting in a two sport day on Saturday.

Rideau Canal skate

First off it was the canal skate. While not a sanctioned event and with un-olympian conditions, I did enjoy the skate. Starting at Patterson creek I headed downtown before turning around and skating to Carleton U and then returning. The ice was not great and was bad, especially between the Bank street bridge and Dows lake as well as the last stretch down to the Rideau centre downtown. It always amazes me how it is 10 degrees colder there than the rest of the city, or perhaps it is just because I skate so fast :-)

Randomn snowshoe

After the skate I headed up Mountain road to do some exploring on snowshoes. I basically followed various tracks in the snow for an hour or so before hitting one of the parkways in Gatineau Park. While I did not end up getting to any sort of lookout I did enjoy the hike and tested out my new boots and some steep terrain where the shoes worked great.