Awesome Weekend

This past Saturday I headed over to Pennsylvania with members of the N.E. Ohio Trail Club for the 4th Annual Slim Pickins FA. This free, no frills run took place on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail. I ended up completing a total of 64 miles in 19 hours and 48 minutes! I'll be posting a run report here in the next day or so...

Bill's Bad Ass FA 50K

This morning I woke up around 5:30 and headed over to the Covered Bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley for the 1st Annual Bills' Bad Ass 50K. This free FA run consisted of six 5-mile loops of the Perkins/Riding Run Trail with the last mile going up a bunch of steps to the top of Oak Hill.

The drive over this morning was very nice with the sun rising and a very thin crescent moon in the sky. My plan was to meet Mike Keller and Brett Shriver at 6:30 so that I could get in an early loop before everyone else started. Mike & Brett had already finished one loop when I arrived. The temperature this morning was pretty chilly, but as the day progressed the high temperature got up into the mid-upper 60's! We are still having unseasonably warm weather for this time of the year but nobody is complaining.

So, after parking at the Church in the Valley I jogged about a quarter mile down the road and met Mike and Brett at the Covered Bridge. Mike had to move his vehicle over to the church lot so Brett and I took off ahead of him. On this loop we probably saw about 3-4 deer with one of them having a nice rack. Since we've been having a lot of warm, dry weather lately, the course was in pretty decent shape. Very unusual for this trail since it's usually muddy and rutted due to horses traveling on it. The only thing we had to watch out for were the stream crossings and all the rocks and roots hidden underneath the leaves. A couple times I thought I was heading for the ground but somehow saved myself from falling.

Brett and I got back to the parking lot after our first loop just as everyone was beginning to gather for the official start. It was awesome to once again see so many familiar faces and be able to catch up with those that I haven't seen for awhile. After a brief course overview from Chef Bill Bailey he gave us the go ahead and we were off.

My first and second loops seemed to go by pretty quick since everyone was together and chatting. The third loop I began to feel a little fatigue but it mainly hit me on the fourth loop as I figured it would. Overall though my body felt pretty good and I was able to run almost every loop in around an hour. I can tell that my endurance base from my recent ultras is paying off and helping to keep me strong during and after my runs. The weather today also made it very enjoyable to just be out there in the woods.

Me & Kirk

The middle part of the run I spent some time with Kirk Harrison, Bob Drake, "Pacer Marie", and both Bills'. The 4th loop I was alone for quite awhile but then ran into Mike Kazar on the trail. When I arrived back at the parking lot to start my last loop Mike Keller was there, so I decided to do the entire 5th loop with him since he lives in Columbus now and I don't get to see him as often as I used to. After finishing our last loop we now had to head up to the top of Oak Hill and pick up a Dum Dum lollipop (I chose the Pink Lemonade flavor) to prove that we had finished. This last climb wasn't too bad today, but if the course is muddier in the future it will definitely add insult to injury. I ended up finishing with a time of 6:53. Not bad considering all the breaks I took.

Mike & I

Overall, I had a blast today and would like to thank Bill Wagner & Bill Bailey for organizing a great run which included free aid and a free tech shirt to those who finished the entire 50K. Here's a picture of what this year's shirt looked like. I thought the logo was pretty cool and am already looking forward to next year's event...

Afterwards I stopped by the Winking Lizard in Peninsula with Bob Combs and we enjoyed a couple microbrews on the patio. Then later on Tami and I then headed over to Chagrin Falls for a free clambake with a bunch of other runners. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day!

Memories

My friend Don Brown, who lives near Yosemite, emailed me this photo today. When he used to live in Cortland, Ohio he ran a lot of marathons with my dad and his running buddies. This photo shows my dad and I coming down the final stretch of Superior Ave. during the '98 Cleveland Marathon en route to my first marathon finish of 3 hours and 44 minutes. Ironically, I was wearing a yellow shirt on this day to celebrate Don's 100th marathon finish. On the picture Don wrote "The first and last time Brian & Joe will run together". He was right in his prediction, but I will always cherish the memories that I have from this race.

Before my dad switched over to cycling after having hip surgery a year ago, he had run somewhere around 40 marathons and 1 ultra marathon. I grew up as a kid watching him finish many road marathons in different cities and it's because of him that I know a lot of what I know today about running.

One of these days I'll scan a bunch of other old photos I have and post them on here...

10 Miles with Slim

Tonight, as I was relaxing on the couch, my friend Jim "Slim" Harris called and said that he was in Streetsboro finishing up some overtime computer work for his job and wondered if I wanted to go for a run with him. At first I told him I was pretty tired and wasn't sure if I was up for it but then I thought, man, he's never usually in my neck of the woods so I might as well take him up on the offer. So, we decided to meet at the Happy Days Visitor Center around 7pm and run trails starting from the ledges and then heading over to Pine Hollow (Kendall Hills) before turning around. The temperature was in the mid 50's tonight but it was pretty muggy and there was a fog starting to form in the air.

Once I got further into our run I felt surprisingly pretty good and we decided to add on a little more by doing the Salt Run Trail. While running on this trail I noticed something fly over us that I first thought was a bat. But then I realized that this was much larger and once it perched itself on a tree branch right next to the trail I discovered that it was a huge owl. We both thought this was pretty cool and stopped for a minute to check it out before it took off into the air again. At this point we turned around and headed back the way we came. Once we got back to our cars my watch said that we had run 10 miles in 2 hours. Pretty good pace for a night run on hilly, technical terrain. Very happy that I got the phonecall tonight or else I might still be sitting on the couch!

Crooked River Run

This evening my brother and I headed over to Lock 29 in Peninsula to run with the Crooked River Trail Runners group for the first time. This is basically a beginning (social) trail running group led by Jim Christ. Each week a different run location is chosen which is then usually followed by food & beer at a local bar/restaurant. Tonight we began running past Terry's Lumber Yard, up "Initiation Hill", and then turning left onto the Buckeye Trail. Once on the BT we then followed the trail down towards the Boston Store but turned left once we hit the path leading to the Boston Store so that we could meet up with the Towpath and take that back to Lock 29. Jeff and I ran the last mile or so pretty hard and finished up with around 5 miles. Afterwards we stopped by the Winking Lizard with Melissa Cairns and others for a few beers!

Presque Isle 12-Hour Endurance Classic

I ran the 12-Hour Presque Isle Endurance Classic for the 2nd time today and finished in 9th place overall with a total of 50 miles in 9:21:31. I was very happy about meeting my goal of finishing two 50 milers on back to back weekends.

For Complete Results - Click Here

Oil Creek 50 Miler

Finished the 1st Annual Oil Creek 50 Miler in 12:07:51 (31st out of 66 finishers)

Complete Results - 50K - 50 Mile - 100 Mile