Sir Coughs-A-Lot

Yup full blown cold.  Coughing is a great way to cross train at least.

Sunrise at 60mph on I295

Monday - Winnick Woods, 6.  Just did a few enjoyable outer loops and had a blast.

Eastern Trail, 6.  Went out later than anticipated on a dark, clear, comfortably windy night. Felt real sluggish at the end as I hadn't had dinner yet. Not a great idea for the grumbling stomach.

Tuesday - Blackstrap Preserve, 8.4.  Really gorgeous and fun run exploring a bunch of trails I've never been on. I still haven't touched some of them and can't wait to get back out. A bit sluggish still today.

Wednesday - Bradbury, 6.  Headed out today for an easy run at the Brad. I didn't want to do too much hill work so I started off at the school field and headed out where I used to rock climb a bunch. The trail meanders along nicely for a while then instead of going where I was used to I took a left over the river and headed up on trails I've not been on before. Eventually I ended up at the quarry, where I spent some time exploring and visualizing fun shallow water climbs for the summer.

After a few dead-ends around Mt. Tryon I found myself cruising along the back side of the connector and part of the Big Bad Ultra course. As much as I enjoyed the familiar trails I really felt the desire to explore so with my sluggish pace I headed up the back side of the Brad bushwhacking until I found a few more dead-end trails and finally the boundary trail.

At this point I figured I should head back and just did a clockwise loop around the mountain ending up at the south west corner of the boundary trail where another rarely used trail brought me back down to the field.

Eastern Trail, 6.  Just a cruise on the flat stuff. Big happenings by the marsh though. All sorts of fish and game, cars, fish nets and dudes in waders. Whoa...

Thursday - Blackstrap Preserve, 8.5.  Great run with Ian, Zak, and Andy at the preserve. Ian shared a few more of the hilly, single-track, super fun trails today and between the four of us and the dogs we got a great workout connecting some real exciting areas.

Decided to get my full 8 in so after running with Ian, Zak, and Andy I headed up to Hardy road to get in a few more miles.

Right at the start of the trail a dog began barking uncontrollably at me and ran along the property line. I've been up and down this trail many times and have never seen it before but I figured it wouldn't bother me too much and continued to run. I then noticed that it had no leash and was coming straight at me. OK, so hopefully there's an electric fence. I got a few more yards down the trail and heard him right behind me barking like Cujo. I came to a dead stop and turned, and the dog put the brakes on kicking up dust and leaves as it came to a stop as well. So began the stand-off for the next five minutes or so. I talked nicely to it and tried to calm it down, even turned again to walk away, but it started after me again. Now I started yelling at the house for anyone to come and get their dog. Nothing. I finally just started walking backwards keeping an eye on it, as every time I looked away it would start after me, barking the whole time. After about a hundred yards of backward walking up the hill it finally stopped and I was able to continue my run. Not cool.

On the way down I grabbed a hefty stick and took the road instead. Where of course I heard it barking at someone else. A couple was walking their tiny dogs and were trying to figure out what to do. I told them of my run-in and they just turned around, stating they'd never seen the dog before either.

Odd halo over the Back Cove

Friday - Stroudwater, 6.  Mellow run.

Scarborough, 6.2.  Annoying road run that just didn't feel right.

Saturday - Pineland, 18.  Started earlier than usual today and met up with a surprising number of people at the parking lot.  At least twelve of us headed out including Zak who was doing a 50k.  It was a fun, slightly quicker pace than anticipated but it's easy to get carried away with smooth trails after running technical stuff so much.

We looped back to the parking lot for the 8:00 crowd and picked up a whole lot more runners.  I ended up running mostly with Joe for the final 2/3's of the run.  We hadn't talked in a long time so it was real good to catch up and hear some of his plans for 2012.  I feel we might have pushed the pace a bit but it was good to be done quicker than I thought with so much going on during the weekend.

Sunday - Bradbury, 20.  Met up with Val and Mindy doing an epic 50k in cool, overcast conditions.  We caught up while exploring the vast trails of the brad.  On our tour we cruised through an interesting parcel of land with stone structures, alters, expensive bird houses, pools, and gardens, all fused with a rich, energetic atmosphere.  At one point we talked about animals and what we'd most like to be.  It was during this conversation I got Sinatra in my head:

After hanging with the ladies for a bit I headed out for some sort of hills or something.  I really wasn't sure, and definitely was not feeling any of the energetic atmosphere leftover from the commune.  However during a sluggish ascent of Lunch Break I heard Mindy and Val headed down the trail, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up.  So I hid behind a rock and proceeded to ambush them as they went by.  It was good to get some juices flowing and great to see the looks of surprise on their faces.

All said and done back at the car I ran in to Xar who was doing a few laps around the field to keep warm before joining the two bad-asses for the tail end of their run.  We chatted a bit about her possibly entering the Barkley next year what her training would look like.  It's gonna be a good year for her!

Time:  15:00hrs
Distance:  91.2miles
Elevation:  10,165ft