Monthly Media: Running 14ers

There is a lot of new stuff in my life I could blog about if I had the time, but, partly because of the new stuff in my life, I will not have time, so here is me being lazy and reposting a video I found embedded in a blog post on The Clymb about outdoorsy dogs.



PS- Part of this new stuff in my life is that I also now have an outdoorsy dog.

Meda: Dragon's Back Race Trailer

Looks like something I want to see. I love this kind of thing.



http://youtu.be/jwp8kY4Z7Fk

Kates Plateau: Back and better than ever!

The last time I wrote about Kates Plateau, I'd reported that spring growth had caused the trail to be overgrown with briars and that recent violent storms had taken down trees and made the first part of the trail very difficult to run enjoyably.

We had some great weather a week ago, and my wife and I really wanted to get out and go hiking last Sunday (2/23/13). We went out to the area to check out Polls Plateau Trail, a trail we'd never completely done before. Polls Plateau Trail is only accessible via Kates Plateau Trail (you're on it for 3 miles), so we went through what was the roughest part of the trail the last time I'd checked it out. I was pleased to see that it looked very runnable. Woohoo! Guess it's just best after the cold has killed back the thorny berry bushes. Also, those giant downed trees and branches that had made running so hard on the first section were gone, and there was obvious evidence that someone had cut and cleared the area.

That wasn't the most exciting news, though...

See that white Honda? That's my car on the OTHER side! :)

That's right, the bridge is UP! No more sloshing through the river, getting wet feet (and risking so much more) on the way to the trail!

As far as Polls Plateau Trail was, it was a great, fun hike, and I'll love to write about it more sometime. For now, I still am working on some other writing projects and also need to get some more running in to get a little back in shape this season. I think doing the Polls Plateau run would be around 10 miles, and I haven't run since, well, the post that was before this one...so, mid-January, and it was only a few miles at Long Point.

Last week, I figured I'd start back up running again soon, but now it's snowing this week again, and I'm just not that hardcore anymore...

Alright have fun out there. Peace.

First run this year

Today was sunny and well into the 60s, and I couldn't waste it indoors. I hadn't run since...I've nearly forgotten, but I am close to positive that the last time I ran at all was the Canary in the Cave. Emily and I had taken a break from running during the winter to focus on some weight training instead (really, I'm just a wimp and didn't want to run in the cold). Oh, about that weight training--I think we may have been about a week and a half behind on that, as well. No matter, today she and I went and did a short workout in the weight room: a few sets of dead lifts and a few sets of preacher curls. After that, we drove out to Long Point to run the short 5k out-and-back. What a gorgeous day! I could feel the effect of my running sabbatical as my heart and lungs were pumping wildly even after a couple miles. Still, I think I could have handled a couple more, but Emily and I had more to get done at the house this evening. Although I feel like a loser because I was challenged by a three miler today, all in all, I am glad I went out to enjoy the sweet weather and get back into a little bit of trail running.

In other news, I found this little blurb on the Rock/Creek blog about one of Salomon's new shoes, the Sense Mantra: http://blog.rockcreek.com/archives/introducing-the-salomon-sense-mantra-trail-running-shoe.html. Looks like something I may be interested in down the road, when I'm in the market for a new pair, but my Inov-8 Roclite 315s are still holding up now, after all that training last year, the 50k, and the 25k+! And they show little signs of wear! I'm very satisfied in these shoes.

Peace,

Tim

Hiatus

In case you've noticed, I've been on a writing hiatus since shortly before the WV Trilogy. I've also been on a running hiatus since the Canary in the Cave 25k+ (and that "+" was no insignificant decimal of a kilometer).

I'm so glad that I missed the registration for Chattanooga's StumpJump 50k. Running my first 50k in my beloved home state was an experience I'll never forget nor regret. The West Virginia Mountain Trail Runners put on some top-notch races, I've found out, and the West Virginia Trilogy was no exception. I only ran the 50k, obviously, but I decided to arrive on Thursday evening for registration and stay the entire weekend. My wife was running the half marathon on Sunday--her first half marathon!--so I had something to look forward to after running on Friday.

The trail was gorgeous! Man, what a beautiful and rich trail, but what a challenge, too! The course was the most challenging thing I've ever ran, 50k aside. Those mountains are no joke. I wish that I could remember everything clear enough to give a detailed race report, but it's been so long since the race that my memories are more of a nostalgic hodgepodge of emotions rather than a set of clear recollections. Also, the delay in getting back to this blog as made any would-be race report from me pretty much outdated and pointless. Besides, I don't even know how you're supposed to do a race report. My report is that the race was great. :) My time was a lot slower than I planned, but, after about the 23rd mile, I was just hoping I would even finish. It was certainly harder than I expected. I ran the 50k in 8:10:25.6 and placed 35th out of 62 runners. Keep in mind, though, that many of those runners were intentionally running slower so that they would have energy for the 50 mile race the next day, and I was giving it all I had. On a cool side note, the winner of the 50k, Clay Warner, is a resident of Beckley, WV, and he ran it in something like 5:15:xx, I think. Unreal.

Anyways, the race was awesome, and my wife also loved the half marathon. Her goal was to finish under 2:30:00, and her time was less than that. She said she thinks it was 2:24. I was going to go to the race results page to look up her and Clay's times, but my computer is giving me troubles. My Macbook has been faithful since I got it, lightly used, in 2007, but it's really showing its age these days. Too many papers and youtube in college has taken its toll on my dear ol' Lappy. Speaking of college, Emily also recently graduated from Montreat College with a Master of Science in Environmental Education. Yay Em! I'm so proud of you!

Between the 50k and now, I also ran in the VERY FIRST Canary in the Cave 25k+! A race on the very trails I've been running most of my trail running days? And with Ibex wool race beanies to boot! I couldn't pass it up. It was a crisp, beautiful, sunny November morning, and the Park Service and race volunteers had done a terrific job at clearing the trail after some bad storms tore down trees all over the Gorge. As far as I can remember, the race started in the park and went into the Town Loop and followed Fayetteville Trail to Kaymoor Top, did a large part of the Arrowhead Trail System, then went down Craig Branch Trail to Kaymoor Trail and then up Fayetteville Trail again and back to the park. I could be missing something in there, but that was the gist of the thing. I ran the course (I'm not sure of the exact distance--I think it was something a little greater than 17 miles) in 3:24:19.4 and finished 21st out of 61. Clay Warner was one of the RDs, so it was cool seeing him again, and some other familiar WVMTR faces were there. Dan Lehman saw me and said hi before the race, and I got to chat with Adam Casseday afterwards (Lehman and Casseday both were RDs for the Trilogy). What a great day. Clay even connected with me a couple weeks later to return my fleece that I had left at the finish line area.

After that, a little bit of Cathedral Cafe for the best latte I've ever had in my life, and it was home to rest. Since then, I haven't run; I've switched to some weight training to change things up for me and keep me sane (and warm during the winter). I hope it helps more than hurts me when spring rolls around.

As for my blogging negligence, the bit of writing I've done since last touching this thing has been toward a possible future novel that's been mulling around in my head since last summer. When it comes to fiction, I've done some short stories in high school and college, so this whole writing something that takes more than a few days to a week to finish is new to me. I'm also not very disciplined at the whole writing regularly thing, so it may take me a while. This blog will probably be on the back-burner  at least until spring when I start running again. Even then, it may not see as much faithfulness to its updates as I used to show.