Thursday, September 25, 2008

Search and Rescue

Yesterday I decided to try a new trail: Stone Mountain. I love things that are new and exciting! Hunter gave me several tips 1) it is very rooty so be careful 2) there are several places where you might need to walk 3) don't wear your music. He also tried to explain where the path would take me but honestly, I didn't get it at all. I am horrible with directions, even one's like "cross over Stonewall and go around the lake" I told Hunter how long I thought it would take me to complete the run and said "if you don't hear from me come looking" and he did!

The trails at Stone Mountain are way more challenging than at Kennesaw Mountain. I am a big fan. It was beautiful out there running around lakes and not having any clue where I was. My Achilles were very sore and my soleus muscle was ON FIRE! I kept hearing things in the woods and I wanted so desperately to turn around and look for deer but I was afraid that I would fall because I had slipped twice at this point. Then it happened: I fell! It was only a matter of time. I picked myself up and brushed off all the dirt. I had no business running on this part of the trail anyways. I got to the divide in the trail and didn't know which way to go so I choose left (of course I was supposed to go right).

On the way back in I ran into Sudie who was doing an 18 mile run in prep for IM Florida. What a rockstar. I want to run 18 miles on the trails! We stopped and chatted for a while. This must have thrown off my awesome navigation skills because I continued on my path and saw a little old man, then about 3/4 of a mile later I ran into him again. Hummm.....I asked him if I was headed to the end of the trail and he said "Nope, you are just running in a circle!" He directed me back to my car and I made it. 6.2 miles total.

Poor Hunter was surely worried about me because he really did come looking! I was gone longer than I told him I would be. What a great guy! And NO, I didn't run with music. Mostly because I had no choice, both my Itouch and my Nano are jacked up! My phone is messed up too, so if you call me and I don't answer, it's probably decided to randomly turn itself off once again!

Have I ever told you how much I love trail running? Mountain biking anyone???

3 comments:

JoeVic said...

First time Vic and I went mountain biking in the Sierra Nevada mountains out in California the trail folks warned us about mountain lions in the area. We shrugged it off. We saw turkeys, a fox, various small animals. Then we saw a herd, I mean a herd of about 20 or so deer. I told Vic, "Mountain lions eat deer. So where there are deer,,,,,,".

We were really in the middle of nowhere. We got to a damn in the mountains, sure there would be a phone or highway or something. Nope. It was 10 miles back to the trail head, the way we'd come. I'd never biked that fast before, and haven't since.

Nat said...

I am totally up for some long trail runs. Let me know this fall if you want to meet and do a long un at Kennesaw. I run late morning through lunch. I just need to be back to get the kiddos by 2. And I can start as early as 8:30.

Kevin said...

I explored those trails at Stone Mtn the last time I was doing a brick there. If I didnt have my wife waiting in the car, I would have explored further. Definitely seemed easy to get lost in there