Running and Spinning in Mayberry

The backpack was a great break after the 10k and a chance to see if my running and bicycling have made a difference in my hiking. The answer is a resounding YES, I can see a big difference! Even after a pre-hike run Saturday morning, I still thought the backpack was pretty easy. This is huge for me!

Anticipating some soreness and tender feet after the weekend, I planned to be a bit of a slacker this week. When no problems surfaced on Monday, I struggled between getting an early afternoon start on the road to Mayberry and going to the gym. I chose the gym, which to out to be the right decision based on what followed.

Dressed in running clothes and a sweatshirt, I grabbed my iPod and headed out, looking forward to a solid run. W-e-l-l, when I got out of my car at the gym, I smelled something unusual around my car....something that smelled like burning rubber!! For about 2 seconds I vacillated between running and taking the car to the shop. Knowing that I had to spend hours on the road this week, the decision was really a no brainer. I climbed back in my car and drove to Harper Infiniti where "the boys" took a look-see. Thirty minutes later the bad news was delivered, both back calipers were bad, one was frozen (hence the burning rubber) and the other almost frozen. Guess I won't drive this car to Mayberry today.

My allotted time for running had vanished in the dealership waiting area. As I climbed into my loaner car (an oh soooo nice G35) to head home and load up before venturing east toward Mayberry, I was pretty happy that I had chosen the run option. Thanks to that decision, I discovered the problem before I got on the road!

Mt. Airy, NC. There isn't much to do in Mayberry except exercise and eat, although the locals will tell a different story. Getting me to the gym and back into a routine of sorts was easy; getting on the spin bike again was not. The Tuesday night instructor, Killer Kelly as she is known in these parts, lived up to her name. Her idea of 60 minutes of fun is lots of jumps, climbs and sprints....I really hate jumps! Since I planned to run after spin class, I opted out of most of the jumps and substituted a good, standing climb. My legs are sore and achy today.

Tonight I had a decent run, tomorrow night I hope to work out the soreness with another spin class. Killer Kelly will not be teaching but I understand the Thursday class is led by someone just like her. Ugh!

Tuesday Workout
Spin Class 60 minutes
Run (treadmill) 1.2 miles, 13.19 minutes (had trouble with the treadmill, that's my story and I am sticking to it(

Wednesday Workout
Run (treadmill) 5.0 miles, 56.08 minutes

Grassy Ridge Backpack

The weather Saturday morning was ominous. As we pulled out of town (around 10:40 AM), dark clouds hung low in Knoxville. When we reached Elizabethton, dark clouds gave way to light rain and fog. A lunch break in one of several Elizabethton Mexican restaurants along Highway 91, did little to cheer us up. We all considered Plan B (bailing), but kept our thoughts to ourselves as we returned to our cars and headed to Carver's Gap, the starting point of our winter backpack. Looked like we were in for just about the worst possible weather for camping on an open bald, rain (with no place to pitch a tarp) and temperatures just above freezing. Could be a long afternoon and evening trapped in our tents.

A 3,900' climb on a very windy road is required to reach Carver's Gap. Much to our surprise, the higher we drove, the drier the road became. Somewhere along the road, we broke through the clouds and the traces of rain disappeared completely. Although we piled out of our cars and smack into a brisk wind, the sun was shining and we could see big patches of blue sky!

Carver's Gap, elevation 5,512' is located in Tennessee at the crossing point of the Appalachian Trail between Roan Mountain and Round Bald. It is the low point in the Roan Mountain ridgeline and just a few steps away from the North Carolina border. We parked in the Gap and picked up the AT headed north, our hike would take us across the first three balds beyond Roan Mountain.

Our group crossing over Round Bald. The beginning of the climb to the top of Jane's Bald is located on the middle left of the photo (the grassy mountain side)

Picture from the top of Jane Bald looking back toward Round Bald (the 1st visible grassy bald)

Rhododendron and the mountains of North Carolina

The trail was muddy from several days of rain and our boots quickly became heavy with the dark, black soil. We crossed the first bald, Round Bald (5826') at a fast pace, stopping at the top to take pictures of the panoramic views....low hanging clouds floating in and out of mountain ridges, as far as the eye could see. The wind remained brisk so we hurried down the back side and up the next bald, Jane Bald (5807'). The AT turns to the left on top of Jane Bald but we took the right fork toward Grassy Ridge, our destination for the evening.

Blue skies, low clouds and sunshine from the back of Grassy Ridge. A mountain range peaks above the clouds in the left side of the photo, just above the pine trees.

After stopping for more photos on the back side of Grassy Ridge, we hiked to our campsite for the evening, an open field with a vicious wind blowing up the back, over the top and down the other side. Level campsites are plentiful but a person is really "out there" with the weather. We were lucky, the temperature remained around freezing although the wind chill took it down to the 20's.

Bill gazing at the ever changing clouds

Our campsite, beautiful but exposed.

Andy and Jonathon

We arrived around 4:00 PM, set up camp and spent time gathering wood. We never did use the wood, the wind was just too strong and flying embers would be risky. I stayed warm and toasty until we settled down for dinner. Hand warmers kept my hands warm, an assortment of fleece, down, wool and wind resistant fabrics kept my body warm, but I still had issues with my feet. Other members of our group were a little colder and pealed off for the comfort of their sleeping bags around 7:00 PM. Bill and Silke headed to their tent shortly after so John and I packed up our cooking equipment and returned our tent.

Me, gathering wood for the fire we didn't burn. It will be a nice surprise for the next group of campers :-)

Sunset from our campsite

John in the tent

Oh, 7:30 PM is too early to crawl in the tent! John lay outside on the ground for a while and gazed up at the clear sky filled with bright, sparkling stars. It was such an incredible sight! We finally settled down a little after 8:00 PM. Amazingly enough, we slept most of the night but were quite really to get up around 7:00 AM.

The wind really blasted against the walls of our tent around during the early part of the night. Somewhere around midnight it stopped but resumed an hour or so before we crawled out at 7:00 AM. We ate breakfast with the wind hitting our backs, it was a chilly affair. We hit the trail a little after 9:00 AM, retracing our steps of the day before. Another lunch, this time in Johnson City and the return drive home. I have been hungry and chilled since. I am looking forward to a good night's sleep, but hopefully not starting at 7:00 PM.

Headed down Round Bald and back to the car. The low frost line indicates a low cloud line

From right to left: Bill, Silke, Jonathon with Andy standing behind Jonathon.

It's That Time Again!

Long underwear-check, rain jacket-check, hand warmers-check, down sleeping bag-check....

H-m-m-m-m, somehow all this stuff

Has to fit in this!

Can backpack #65 really be almost here? Just a month ago, with frozen fingers and toes, I swore off cold weather backpacking forever. Yet this feeble mind seems to have forgotten the numbing pain. Tonight I am busy attempting to stuff my very survival into a small, sturdy bag to be hoisted on my shoulders and carried into the wilderness. With the weather looking iffy at our destination, I have my fingers crossed and eyes open for another location. Forecasted rain-sleet-snow and temps in the low 20's will bring back some chilling memories. A big, open bald at 6,100' is no place to be camping in bad weather. What happened to the me that once eagerly anticipated cold weather camping?

On the exercise side of life where it is always cozy warm in the gym, my legs are officially jello. I crawled out of bed at 5:30 AM and headed to the gym for a short 3-mile run. What I lacked in distance I made up in intensity. I ran 11:06 minute miles, which is 26 seconds per mile faster than my January 5k. The run was topped off some 12 hours later with spin class. Oh and...I cheated a little. When the instructor said to crank the tension up, and up, and up for the last 15 minute hill, I cranked once, cranked twice and then pretended. It's gonna take a few classes to get my legs back to their pre-Christmas spin condition.

Back to the Bike

A couple of pictures of my Valentine's flowers, still beautiful some 5 days later. Lucky me!

I am, quite simply, very tired today. Recently I have been talking up how I plan to get back on the bike as soon as the 10k was over. On Sunday, John reminded me that it was over. So after a hilly 4-mile run on Sunday and a fast (for me) 4-miles in the afternoon, I climbed on the bike last night for a very windy ride.

We didn't go too far or too fast. As a matter of fact, John never got his heart rate above 110, but mine was racing. I struggled against the wind (19 mph) as we headed west on our loop and sailed when it pushed against my back. While John was sleek and graceful in his "outfit" (code: bicycle spandex and jacket), I just wanted to keep warm in my fleece tights, vest, thermal turtleneck and lightweight wind jacket (code: hiking clothes). Most annoying was the flapping sound of the nylon jacket as it whipped in the wind. I couldn't hear above the noise.

One of the purposes of this ride was to test the frame fit on John's son's bike. His Trek is about 12 years newer than mine and the components and technology much better. The problem is, I usually ride a 54 cm Trek and this is a 56 cm so I had to really stretch to reach the gears and brakes comfortably. John is going to replace the fork to see if this will work but regardless of which bike I use, I have some ridin' to do to get comfortable on the bike again!

After the ride, I scoured my gym calendar for the next spin class compatible with my schedule. I have to wait until Thursday. It has been 8 weeks since my last spin class (the racing excuse again) so it will be like starting over.....ouch!

Strawberry Plains 10K (and 1/2 Marathon)

Today was a perfect day for racing. The temperature hovered just below 50 F, the sky was partly overcast and the wind was almost nonexistent. John and I left South Knoxville around 7:40 AM and arrived at an already crowded race site some 25 minutes later. While excited to run my first 10k race, I carried my pre-race jitters to the start line.

Race check-in was a breeze so John and I stood around until about 8:50 AM, when we heard the race director call for the line up. Some one bravely sang the national anthem acapella (now that is tough) and before I knew it, I heard the starting gun! 500 pairs of feet started shuffling from the parking lot to the street.

Took some minutes for people to begin spreading out. I was toward the back and the rolling terrain provided a great view of the running wave. Soon we turned left and ran under an old country railroad bridge. The cool thing was the train crossing the bridge above us.

Putting on my race number "9788"

Very nice coolmax souvenir t-shirts

Racers lining up. I am turned backward watching John

And the racers are off!

I settled comfortably into the run. Although I had my iPod in my pocket "just in case," I ran the entire race without it. Each mile was clearly marked and there was a water stop just beyond mile 2, which made it just before mile 4 on the way back (I took water coming back). The rural scenery was great but the rough pavement kept my eyes fixed to the road for most of the race. I did enjoy the sounds of the country....moos and birds chirping. Mostly I enjoyed the peaceful silence.

Mile 3.1 came up pretty fast and we U-turned around an orange cone. I watched some of the people who had been running near me continue on the half marathon course, including two 60 something ladies who had been discussing running. One said that she was glad she had not started running until she was 58, because she didn't have to watch the race times of her youth become a distant memory. She said she was still improving. Amen to that!

I was running next to a younger woman who was in run-walk mode. She walked up the hills and ran the rest. We must have passed each other 10-15 times. I told her I envied her fast running, she told me she envied the fact that I could run the entire race. The race finished on a downhill and she beat me by some seconds.

I am not sure what my time was, I think somewhere around 1:12. I was so excited to finish and feel good that I forgot to pay attention. Times should be posted on the Knoxville Track Club website in the next day or two. (Results are in, my actual time was 1.11.44, an 11.33-min pace....better than the 12-min mile I expected)

Diane Madison #1003

John caught sight of Diane Madison, an old backpacking companion, at the beginning of the race. We didn't have a chance to speak to her until after the race. Like a bunch of old folks, we stood around discussing our health issues. Diane apparently had the same problem that I did last year, she tripped on a piece of rough pavement while running. She broke her ankle and was in a cast for 8 weeks. I jumped in with my broken arm and John, his broken collar bone. Her training partner (the guy behind her) had only a stubbed toe to discuss. Oh well, we hope to have more positive things to discuss if we see her at another race.

Running into the finish!

I finished, I am smiling! The end to a great first 10K (the guy behind me is finishing the 1/2 Marathon :-)

Pre-Race Jitters

Hope I didn't make a big mistake tonight, I just ate leftover pasta from Wednesday night's dinner at Macoroni Grill. My stomach started bubbling and gurgling several hours before dinner but I didn't feel bad, so I chalked it up to pre-race jitters. Unfortuantely, I forgot that I had the spicy marinara sauce. Maybe it won't cause me any problems tomorrow.....

Since I missed running yesterday, I got out at lunch for a short 1.5-miles, just enough to loosen up and enjoy the spring weather. I am looking forward to getting the 10k (my first) out of the way. Next week I will return to spin class, bicycling and begin working with my new swim coach. I expect to be pretty sore by week's end.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Happy Valentine's Day!

What will we be doing to celebrate? After 7 years of battling crowds and hurried service we are dining in. On the menu is steak, shrimp, grilled asparagus, potatoes and lots of butter and garlic! We will top this off with chocolate covered strawberries and cherries from South's Finest Chocolates and a couple of days of serious exercise and bouillion (just kidding on the bouillion). Oh so rich and oh so good!

We give presents sporadically on Valentine's Day. Last year I didn't give John anything, this he will get the Smartwool neck gaiter and liner gloves with grippers that he has been eyeing at Mast General Store. Not too romantic but both items will be great for bicycling and our upcoming backpack to Grassy Ridge.

No running for me today, I spent lunch getting ready for dinner. Yesterday was another 4 miles on the treadmill. Tomorrow will be a short, easy run before the 10k.

Earphone Dilemma

My iPod is not quite 6 weeks old and already I own 3 sets of headphones. Unfortuantely I have yet to find the perfect pair. My first pair (A) came with the iPod, the original earphones if you will. I worked with this pair for a couple of days with no success. They fell out everytime I tried to run.

Pair B is the 1st pair I purchased (well, 2nd, I returned the first). This pair fits around the ear and is fairly stable and comfortable. These earphones also block out all outside noise, a fact that prompted John to have a "discussion" with me when he discovered I couldn't hear him when he walked up behind me. You can guess what the discussion was about. Pair B would be fine for treadmill running, but as you can see, one ear piece is missing. I stepped on it.

A trip to Target resulted in Pair C, the Nike Vapor, with a 3-way adjustable ear piece. Sound quality is great, comfort level is crappy! The speakers do not fit in my ear. I can hear outside noises (this makes John happy) but can barely hear the music, which makes me unhappy. What is it about our ears that make one pair fits so good and another so bad? The speakers on the different earphones seem to be about the same size. Is there no way to size for big ears or small ears?

On the running side of life, this is an easy week in preparation for the upcoming 10k. Today's plan was a relaxed 3-mile run on the treadmill but I was feeling pretty good so I kicked up the pace to 15 seconds faster than my previous fastest treadmill run. I discovered I have been a treadmill slacker. I breezed through 4 miles feeling strong. Incredible! A short 4-1/2 months ago, I returned to running with a very slow 12:30 minute mile. Today's run, at an 11:15 pace, seemed easy. Now, if I can just duplicate the effort over the next 4 months!

Sunday on the Boulevard

We did our usual thing today, church, Panera's for coffee, then exercise. Shoved inbetween coffee and exercie, was a trip to Strawberry Plains to drive the route for the Straw Plains 10k. The course is beautiful, lots of farmland, some sections in sight of the Holston River, but also a little hillier than I expected. While the scenery on a sunny day should be distracting, Saturday's long range forecast is for rain. I have to think about running 6 miles in the rain, in cool weather.

Thoughts of a "rolling" course sent me immediately to Cherokee Blvd to practice on the hilly section. John rode laps on his bike while I inched up and down the hills. Not as bad as I thought but I have revised my expectation for the 10k, I may come in last after all.

John got in a decent ride, some 15 miles or so and I ran 3.2-miles. I am ready for a rest day!

Running this week:

Tuesday : 5-miles, treadmill
Wednesday: 2-miles, treadmill
Friday: 5 miles, treadmill
Saturday: 6 miles, Cherokee Blvd
Sunday: 3.2 miles hilly, Cherokee Blvd.

Mt Airy, the Salt Factor and Running

Three nights in Mt. A = three nights eating everything Thailand Cafe. Basil shrimp rolls, seafood salad, lettuce wraps and steamed dumplings, all served with salt based sauces. My sodium intake is over the top. I am finally home, flushing the salt with large quantities of water and anticipating a pasta dinner!

I had a great few days in the office! Got to catch up with the people in my group, check out the new building expansion and dress in something other than jeans. On the other hand, it required that I get up an hour earlier everyday.....and dress in something other than jeans. Can't wait to crawl in my own bed tonight, sleep an hour later and wear my jeans tomorrow!

Exercise was never far from the office conversation as several people in my group are training for various events in the Mt. A and surrounding NC-VA counties (this area hosts a number of road races, bicycle events and triathlons). We chatted about running, workouts and I received some song suggestions for my iPod. We will exchange emails about our progress and successes as we work to accomplish our 2008 goals.

Even with all the eating and socializing, I managed to put in treadmill time at the Mt A community center. The community center is an old YMCA with limited space devoted to areobic and weight machines, which means a very limited number of treadmills. Like my gym in Knoxville, Reeves is still filled with New Years resolutioners so a little patience and some standing around were involved to grab a free machine.

Tuesday's run was a nice 5.0-mile effort in a fairly hot room on a crummy treadmill. Wednesday's effort was not so good, a meager 2.0-mile run and I struggled to run as long as I did. Oh well, tomorrow is another day and I can't wait to return to my lunchtime running routine. I have a number of miles yet to log this week!

Running Update

Running update for the last couple of days. Thursday's 3-mile run, planned for the treadmill, turned into a 4.2-mile run on my neighborhood hills. I couldn't bear the thought trudging to the gym again this week. The weather was pleasant for the end of January and I felt great. Friday was a rest day and today was my scheduled 7-miler.

The temp was around 28 F when I woke up, so I stayed busy around the house until the mercury rose to a toasty 36 F. Unfortuantely, the rise did not occur until early afternoon and breakfast was consumed hours before. I was hungry and my stomach grumbling, this is a bad sign.

Cherokee Blvd was not too crowded and my run started out just fine. The first 3-miles passed quickly as my iPod shuffled through the song list. The second 3-miles was a bit tougher as my tired calves and qlutes (the hill climbers) started to ache. I found my body trying to convince my mind that it would be okay to stop. This was a little frustrating as I thought I had mastered mind over body.

When I finally went to the car, I had completed a 6-mile run, a little faster than my last 6-mile run on the Blvd and I was pleased. I had lost my appetite, my legs ached, I picked up an unplanned mile on Thursday and I had recycle in the car to unload.......yeah. Lots of excuses for not running 7-miles, but in truth, I was just ready to be done. Although 7-miles was my personal qualifier to sign up for The Knoxville Track Club Strawberry Plains 10K on February 16th, I have decided that 6-miles is good enough. The race application goes in the mail on Monday. Just hope I can convince John to take few hours of his Saturday morning to stand in the cold and be my support team.

Use of Earphones STRONGLY Discouraged!

My iPod now contains over 2 hours of music, some 33 songs of various length and all with the right beat to keep my feet moving. Recently I have been craving variety and shuffling what I have isn't satisfying the crave. Unfortunately, I am about out of ideas for new tunes. While asking what others are listening to seems like the best idea, I am afraid to ask anyone under say, 40, because I probably wouldn't recognize their artists of choice. When did I get this old?

Concerning iPod use, I have been reading the application for the Strawberry Plains 1/2 Mary and 10k. It notes that "use of earphones and headsets is STRONGLY discouraged." While I understand the logic of the request, I have some concerns. The guys on the front lines, the fast runners, will be finished with the race, high fiving and stuffing down pancakes long before I reach the halfway point. Lets face it, I am slow. While the scenery will be new and interesting, my mind is going to need some distraction from the time and discomfort. So the question for me is, do I run with the iPod and one earphone or try to struggle through without?