Happy Days to Kendall Hills

My brother and I met at Happy Days tonight in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and planned on doing our usual route to Kendall Hills and back. On our way there we saw a few dark clouds and weren't sure if we were going to get wet or not but it ended up being fine and the sun even peaked through occasionally. As we approached the Kendall Lake parking lot and turned onto the trail to our left we saw this deer standing right in our path. It was a pretty large one...

We actually saw quite a few deer on our run tonight and turned it into a game to see how close we could get to them. This resulted in a couple extra miles and gave us a total of 8.25 miles for the evening. I felt a little sluggish tonight and my achillies tendon on my right foot was acting up slightly, but overall not too bad. I plan on resting tomorrow and maybe doing another long run Thursday if all goes well.

34 Mile Burning River Training Run

Left to right - Mark Anson, Kathleen Alexander, Kirk Harrison, Star Blackford, Jeff Musick, and myself (Sean Hensley joined us later)

In preparation of the Burning River 100 miler, I met a group of runners this afternoon at the Happy Days Visitor Center around 3 o'clock. Our plan was to run the last 30 miles of the course, finishing up in the center of Cuyahoga Falls. The temperature today was in the low 80's and since we started during the hottest part of the day it definitely made things tough. This was a great run though for us to help acclimate to the weather we'll be experiencing in August.

I felt great during most of the run but I could tell that later on in the evening I was getting tired from not eating enough solid food and possibly not taking in enough salt during the day. I primarily relied on Gu Chomps. However, I did have some peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, pretzels, and a bottle of Coke at the Covered Bridge parking lot (thanks to the aid dropped by others). Despite feeling some fatigue from the sun beating down on us all day, I was able to hang on and finish a total of 34 miles in 8 hours with Kirk and Star. Here are a few pictures and a video taken during the day...

The Tunnel of Terror!

An unattended government vehicle in the woods

New License Plates

My new personalized plates came in the mail today!

Post-storm Sunset

Once the storms passed through tonight, the sky turned beautiful outside of my apartment...

R.I.P. to Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson who both passed away today. May the Lord comfort their friends and family during this difficult time.

14 Mile Trail Run

This evening I met Jim Harris, his son Heath, and my brother Jeff at the Boston Store at 6:30pm for a trail run. TJ Hawk and this girl named Brenda also showed up. We started off by doing the 8 mile Pine Lane loop and then ran the Brandywine loop to finish up with a total of 14 miles. I felt great tonight and maintained a steady pace throughout. Good follow-up to the 15 miles I did on Sunday and a great time for me to be increasing my weekly mileage prior to Burning River.

Sunset

I took this picture tonight as I was driving over I-480...

Father's Day Trail Run

This morning I met my brother and another runner, Todd Hanks, next to the Old Log Cabin in Mill Creek Park at 7am. Our plan was to do 2 inner YUT-C loops for a total of close to 15 miles. Jeff called it a day after 1 loop and Todd continued with me to finish up the 2nd loop. I felt really good and could've gone longer but had to leave myself enough time to make it to Heath Harris' graduation party.

We noticed that the river level was really high today due to a couple days of heavy downpours. Check out this video of the waterfall raging next to Lanterman's Mill...

During our run we also saw a pretty cool looking turtle crawling along...

Boston Store to Snowville Rd.

I couldn't pass up the nice weather today so I took a half day off work and met Brett Shriver at the Boston Store for a mid-day 10 mile run in the heat. We ran to Snowville Rd. and back and kept up a pretty good pace, making it there in one hour and making it back to the Boston Store in exactly an hour as well. After yesterday's run I was happy to get in some more distance today and put up another quality effort. Time to start increasing my mileage before the Burning River 100 on August 1st.

Happy Days to Pine Hollow

This morning I headed over to the Happy Days Visitor Center and did a 6 mile solo run to Pine Hollow and back in under an hour. I had my iPod on today and could tell since I was pushing the pace. I even ran up the steep hills on my way to Pine Hollow. Was pleased with my effort today despite the heat and humidity.

Happy Days to Kendall Hills

Today I met my brother Jeff (left) and Greg Murray (right) at Happy Days and we did an easy run to Kendall Hills and back for about 6-7 miles.

Boston to Snowville Rd.

Did a 10 mile solo run today from the Boston Store to Snowville Rd. and back. Once again the weather was beautiful!