Day 126 - No running

No running today. Giving the legs a rest day!

4-5-2011

Day 125 - Hiking

The weekend really beat me up. Below my right knee cap it is sore and the joint above my big toe on my right foot is very sore. I am taking this as a message to slow down. Back to hiking for tonight to see if it feels better going slower. About half way through my hike I hear some noise and when I look over there were thousands of little bugs jumping around on the leaves. The first pic below looks a little purple but the bugs were black. Maybe they all were out because if was very warm out. It was great being out in the warmer weather and can't wait to run in it every night.

4-4-2011 - 5 miles - 1:25 - hike

Day 124 - Legs feel very sore

Today started with a nice 4 mile hike with my wife. We hiked the AT to Pulpit Rock and back the road hill loop. We got to meet a very nice 67 year young lady that hikes up there about 5 or 6 days a week with here dog. She even said she runs down the road hill to the parking lot. That is one of the tricks to living longer - keep moving forward.

After returning home from our hike I ate, packed my drinks, food and I was out the door for my run. I think this run should of been called the "Leg Burner or Legs Feel Very Sore" run. My legs were shot today but I wanted to get a back to back long run in. I did a lot of the trails I usually do. Up the Pulpit Rock road hill, down to the campground, up to Pinnacle, back to Pulpit Rock and then onto the road. That is when the fun started. My legs really felt sore during the 8 miles on the road. I kept just over a 10 min. pace. and with tired legs I was happy with that. My legs felt just like they do in a long event and pushing through is what you have to do and forget about the discomfort the best you can.

4-3-2011 - 20 miles - 3:55 - run
4-3-2011 - 4 miles - 1:22 - hike

The view from Pulpit Rock

The view from Pulpit Rock

Looking up at Pulpit Rock from the campground

The view from the Pinnacle

The plantains I was talking about on Thursdays run. The coconut and grapefruit were gone.

A trail at Kaercher Creek Park

Kaercher Creek Park - Pulpit Rock is located on the mountain in the middle. 

Kaercher Creek overflow water tunnel 

Day 123 - Leg Burner run

The Leg Burner run I just mapped out a couple days ago. Basically it is a route with as many hills as I could find to make a great hilly fun run. Not to many people use hilly and fun in the same sentence but with MMT fastly approaching you need to get them in now. With me there were 7 of us that started the run. The run started with 2.6 mile loop up the AT heading west, down a pipeline and back to the parking lot. We all warmed up on the first climb. When we hit the steep downhill pipeline the leaves were very slippery and with the loose rocks made it a challenge but we all made it down safely. From there we headed east on the AT to a pole line that went straight down to Rattling Run creek and straight back up to the road near the Port Clinton fire tower. The rest of the group head back to the parking lot from the creek and Steve and I headed out for the rest of the loop. We then ran by the fire town, down to Drehersville seeing some bear tracks in the snow and back up to the fire tower. Then we ran down the road to the Rattle Snake trail, Moss trail and back on the AT to the parking lot. We hit 20 miles as we went under the 61 bridge. From there we agreed to run the loop we did in the morning in the reverse direction. The pipeline was very steep but there was no slippery leaves just a lot of loose rocks. After getting back to the cars we headed up a steep road to some game land parking lot turned around and ran back to the cars. Steve is also running MMT and today was great training for both of us.

Later at night I did a 4 mile hike with my friend Donny to get the legs moving after the beating they took earlier in the day. What a great hilly run and hike in the mountains today.

4-2-2011 - 25.44 miles - 5:44 - run
4-2-2011 - 4 miles - 1:12 - hike

Run down the Pipeline

Day 122 - Easy run

Tonight the family and a friend of the girls went to the movies. I went for a nice easy run. I left from the house and went up to Pulpit Rock and around the mountain. Hopefully this will be some of the last pics of snow I will be posting form spring. I only passed two people the whole run. The mountain was all mine other than all the animals watching me run by. Tonight I ran on some other trails that I didn't run for a couple of weeks and I could really see the damage that the ice storms and winds caused. Come on spring we are waiting;-)


4-1-2011 - 8 miles - 1:25 - run

The view from Pulpit Rock

Spring on the Appalachian Trail

Spring on the Appalachian Trail

Day 121 - Weird

Today I met Donny out on part of my run. We ran the loop at Kaercher Creek, cut through the Hamburg Centre State Hospital grounds to Mountain road. From there we ran down Mountain road to the towpath trail. Right before we ran under the 78 bridge I looked over to the right and there were about 6 or 7 plantains, a coconut and I think a grapefruit laying on the ground. It look like someone just laid them there and left. It was really weird to find them laying on the ground in the middle of nowhere. Maybe we were on camera to get our reaction. We headed back by his house and I kept run and finished with just under 9.75 miles.


3-31-2011 - 9.75 miles - 1:35 - run