Rainy days are dreaming/ planning days

Canal skating in Holland and Horn Sledding in th Alps

Unexpectedly have the day off; a wet slippery icy day off. So I skipped running on the ice in the dark this morning in favour of running on the ice this afternoon in the grey light of winter.

And so Im staying in this morning and catching up with a few twitter favourites that i never got to watch. Like this inspiring little two-minute clip of ice skating on the frozen canals of Holland.

Dutch Winter from Kasper Bak on Vimeo.

Dutch Winter from Kasper Bak on Vimeo.

I say inspring cause i immediately jumped on google to see where and when i can go. found this extraordinarily helpful blog: 10 things i learned about skating in holland.

pointed me to the Royal Skating Union’s website which lists planned canal skating dates.. end of january is full of events… id feel more confident about it happening if it wasnt all of a sudden +10 here today…

anyway, ive added it to THE LIST and if the weather turns around, and im still here later this winter, then im going skating on the dutch canals. if not, maybe on the ottawa canal? (maybe ill just add “canal skating” to the list, to be safe)

and then i stumbled on some crazy footage of Horn Sledding on Wank Mountain in Bavaria. Despite the ridiculous names involved, it really made me proud for my little German friends. From my experience here in Essen, they cant drive in snow, they cant shovel it, they are just useless. But they sure can tobaggan.

Horn Sledding was a traditional method of transporting wood or hay off the moutain. Check this short vid from 1934:

The modern race came, like all good things, from a bet. Six sleds took part in the first race on Januraty 6, 1970.

Tell me this doesnt look like fun:

that was german style hornsledding from garmish. below is what the italians (in Olang, Tirol) do with hornsledding:

hmmm… truly stoked for my run now…