5 reasons to go see Running

Lake running is very similar to trail running, except that you are out on the frozen surface of a lake or pond rather than on firm earth. Your first question that you may want to ask yourself before lake running is why are you out there in the first place?

There are a few advantages to being on the ice.  Here are 5 of the reasons I can think of off of the top of my head:


There is no traffic. First, there is no traffic other than the occasional fisherman, a random pickup truck, and snowmobiles. Wear dark clothing during the day and you should stand out just fine so that they can avoid you. On a road, a car does not have very far that it can go to avoid hitting you, and there are far more distractions making it easy for a driver to not even see you. If the car on a road slips on the ice, it will probably be a lot closer to you than it would be on the lake.

It's a tough workout. Running on ice is not the easiest surface, although if there is a good layer of snow packed down by snowmobiles it will be a lot easier. You will still have to contend with the wind, and lakes rarely have anything to block its access to you. Its like built-in speed work without the bother of having to run faster!

There are no hills. Sometimes you just don't want to go up or down. It is very difficult to find a completely level surface on which to run, but it's pretty rare to find a frozen lake that is not flat or that significant hill. If you leave the lake and walk up and on an island, in each case.

Nothing can fall on you. If you are in one room wide open, then there is little chance that something is wrong, you fall on and hurt you if you run out, like ice or snow from trees and power lines.

Lake is great fun. The most important reason is that you can hang from the lake. It can be very funnybe running on a completely flat, unbroken terrain. It is also interesting to run by people sitting around a hole waiting for their fish trap to spring, freezing themselves silly, while you are going by with short sleeves or even no shirt at all.