The cold weather has firmly set in here in in Northern Virginia and being a little more pressed for time I decided to defer from my usual Staurday morning ride at Fountainhead Regional Park and make the short 10 minute drive to the route known locally as Difficult run, which takes in sections through Lake Fairfax Park, the Cross Country Trail and the W&OD.  The route is approximatley 9.5miles and I can consistently get round in approx 50 minutes.

With it being so cold I wasn't hanging around this morning and got out on the trail as quickly as I could, before I hopped out of the car I quickly snapped the display which showed the temperature at a healthy 28 degrees Fahrenheit:



Without messing around I unleashed the goblin into the crisp morning and headed of to whizz round as quickly as I could:

There's lots of different ways to mix up this run however the most popular route starts out at the Ice Rink car park off Michael Faraday Drive.  Heading into the trails around lake Fairfax park at the top corner of the car park.  There's lots of different ways of describing the route however the best way to show the route I take is to check out my route on Strava.

http://www.strava.com/activities/97837954

The trail was pretty iced, ground was hard and it was fairly fast rolling, I couldn't feel my hands by the end of it so do need to consider some thicker gloves if I'm going to be out in the cold again however, I did get to break out one of my black Friday purchases from yesterday, I picked up a pair of the below Nike base layer pants for the princely sum of $36 dollars form Dick's Sporting Goods.

They held up great today and although not cycling specific, worn with some liner shorts underneath my baggies they worked a treat.  I'll post up a review after I've had chance to give them a few more outings.

Until next time....