Sunday, September 10, 2006
Have a nice trip see you next fall
Lot's of running this weekend spread between opening weekend for soccer and my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. Since Opening day starts off with a parade at the high school at 8:30 am, Mark and I ran early at 5:30 to get our miles in. We ran the fire station to fire station run which comes in at right at 10 miles. Most of the run is up Black Mountain Road, which definitely gets your attention.
The soccer game on Sunday started at noon, that afforded us the luxury of running Huddart Park. I wanted to log some serious miles this morning at Huddart, so, I prepared Mark to get ready to cover 16 tough trail miles.
We are driving up the hill, getting ready to turn onto the Highway, I have my cup of espresso in my right hand, steering the car with my left hand when Mark yells out, look out - there was a dead critter right in the middle of the lane. Without blinking an eye, I swerved out of the lane, avoided hitting the roadkill, and swerved back into the lane without spilling a drop. That was a close one!
We get to Huddart Park right at 6:25 am, go through our normal routine, and start off on our run. Today's run promised to be very interesting as I've never done this particular route before. I've run just about every trail in Huddart, but not this route. Our normal loop is approximately is 11.4 miles but today, we are going to add the skyline ridge trail (takes you Wunderlich Park).
Everything was progressing nicely, we kept a nice steady pace and when we got to the normal left turn down Chiaquapin trail, we turned right and ventured into new territory. I use to run this trail all the time back in Team in Training days, but haven't been on it for such a long time. It was fun to be back, the only concern I had was fatigue, we ran pretty long already up some tough hills, and now we are on a trail I swear seems like it's uphill both ways!
We just wanted to run 2.5 miles out and back on the Skyline Trail, so I checked my Garmin to see where we were distance wise, and off we went. About 16 minutes into the run, Mark asked me how far have we gone? I told him well, according to my Garmin, we've gone .9 Ummm Joe, I don't so, maybe there is something wrong with the Garmin?
Damn, I finally found the Garmin's weak link in Huddart Park. Mark was commenting earlier on how we were on the southern exposure of Huddart and how the topagraphy was much different on this side of the mountain. I guess the southern exposure in Huddart causes the Garmin to freak out. My very expensive piece of equipment is now a paper weight on my wrist. What a POS.
We are on the trail, when all of a sudden, I hear some F bombs. I glance over my shoulder, and see Mark hobbling up and down. He sprained his ankle on those dreaded trail roots. We decided that we've gone far enough on the trail and it's now a good time to turn back and head home. I guess when fatigue sets in, you tend to drag your feet and not really lift them up.
No more than 500 meters into our way back, I stride over a root, but my left toe catches the top of it. Instinctively, my right shoulder curls in, and I brace myself for the fall. Palms out, I roll nicely on my right side, landing on the side of my leg. I must say, it was poetry in motion. Mark seeing my tumble, senses I am ok, starts to laugh a bit and goes, you had to show me up on my fall. I also laugh and say hey that's why I wore a long sleeve shirt!
My white shirt was now two toned with trail dust mixed in with the sweat and my shorts were pretty trashed too. I couldn't see any blood oozing out, so, I must have rolled pretty well. Later when I showered off, I had a real nice raspberry on my leg.
Looking no worse for wear, we make our way back down the trail back to our familiar path. We stop for a minute before we head down the trail, and figured we must have gone about 6 miles out and back on the ridge trail, I mentioned to Mark good thing he fell down as we would have still been out running! The end never looked so good, I could almost taste the coffee awaiting us at the Woodside Bakery. Mark talked me into actually eating something so, I obliged and had a muffin. Instead of taking our goodies to go, we sat down for a spell and eat at a table!
All in all, not a bad run, instead of running 16, we covered 17 tough trail miles, lot's of hills, a couple spills, but that's why we run - for the adventure. The kicker though is on our way back, Mark looks in the mirror and says Joe, why didn't you tell me I had dried snot on the side of my face....
The soccer game on Sunday started at noon, that afforded us the luxury of running Huddart Park. I wanted to log some serious miles this morning at Huddart, so, I prepared Mark to get ready to cover 16 tough trail miles.
We are driving up the hill, getting ready to turn onto the Highway, I have my cup of espresso in my right hand, steering the car with my left hand when Mark yells out, look out - there was a dead critter right in the middle of the lane. Without blinking an eye, I swerved out of the lane, avoided hitting the roadkill, and swerved back into the lane without spilling a drop. That was a close one!
We get to Huddart Park right at 6:25 am, go through our normal routine, and start off on our run. Today's run promised to be very interesting as I've never done this particular route before. I've run just about every trail in Huddart, but not this route. Our normal loop is approximately is 11.4 miles but today, we are going to add the skyline ridge trail (takes you Wunderlich Park).
Everything was progressing nicely, we kept a nice steady pace and when we got to the normal left turn down Chiaquapin trail, we turned right and ventured into new territory. I use to run this trail all the time back in Team in Training days, but haven't been on it for such a long time. It was fun to be back, the only concern I had was fatigue, we ran pretty long already up some tough hills, and now we are on a trail I swear seems like it's uphill both ways!
We just wanted to run 2.5 miles out and back on the Skyline Trail, so I checked my Garmin to see where we were distance wise, and off we went. About 16 minutes into the run, Mark asked me how far have we gone? I told him well, according to my Garmin, we've gone .9 Ummm Joe, I don't so, maybe there is something wrong with the Garmin?
Damn, I finally found the Garmin's weak link in Huddart Park. Mark was commenting earlier on how we were on the southern exposure of Huddart and how the topagraphy was much different on this side of the mountain. I guess the southern exposure in Huddart causes the Garmin to freak out. My very expensive piece of equipment is now a paper weight on my wrist. What a POS.
We are on the trail, when all of a sudden, I hear some F bombs. I glance over my shoulder, and see Mark hobbling up and down. He sprained his ankle on those dreaded trail roots. We decided that we've gone far enough on the trail and it's now a good time to turn back and head home. I guess when fatigue sets in, you tend to drag your feet and not really lift them up.
No more than 500 meters into our way back, I stride over a root, but my left toe catches the top of it. Instinctively, my right shoulder curls in, and I brace myself for the fall. Palms out, I roll nicely on my right side, landing on the side of my leg. I must say, it was poetry in motion. Mark seeing my tumble, senses I am ok, starts to laugh a bit and goes, you had to show me up on my fall. I also laugh and say hey that's why I wore a long sleeve shirt!
My white shirt was now two toned with trail dust mixed in with the sweat and my shorts were pretty trashed too. I couldn't see any blood oozing out, so, I must have rolled pretty well. Later when I showered off, I had a real nice raspberry on my leg.
Looking no worse for wear, we make our way back down the trail back to our familiar path. We stop for a minute before we head down the trail, and figured we must have gone about 6 miles out and back on the ridge trail, I mentioned to Mark good thing he fell down as we would have still been out running! The end never looked so good, I could almost taste the coffee awaiting us at the Woodside Bakery. Mark talked me into actually eating something so, I obliged and had a muffin. Instead of taking our goodies to go, we sat down for a spell and eat at a table!
All in all, not a bad run, instead of running 16, we covered 17 tough trail miles, lot's of hills, a couple spills, but that's why we run - for the adventure. The kicker though is on our way back, Mark looks in the mirror and says Joe, why didn't you tell me I had dried snot on the side of my face....
