Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina runs

 Up at 6am and off to Richmond VA for a run on the Capital City trail.  I had a chilly night sleep (1030-6am) with it only about 35 degrees in the car when I woke up.  I arrived in Richmond at 630am and was surprised to see many already out running in the pre-dawn darkness.  I headed out on the trail along the canal and river and did a nice out/back 4 miles to start the day off.

Next up was a 110 mile drive to Medoc Mountain where I took a few minutes to check out the very tall fire tower.

I was breaking up the ride to Florida with some interesting (to me) sights along the way.  I had another 100 mile drive that got me to the Sampson County high point (just a dash between the houses to this subtle bump).

Then over to the nice dirt Dunn-Ervin rail trail for a scenic 4 mile out/back run.

Next up was a 180 mile drive to Santee state park on Lake Marion (Santee SC).  It was now 70 degrees but there was a strong breeze that helped.  I did an "easy" 4 miles out/back on the soft pine needle dirt trail.

Then the tough part, another 500 miles to Zephyrhills.  Nearly 1,500 miles driven and over 400 songs on the ipod.

Running up North

I headed up to Vermont for the weekend to get in some running with Eric and (his dog) Murdock.  On Saturday we hung out watching the Olympic trails marathon then headed to some local cross-country trails for a brisk (temperature not pace) run on the snow pack trails.

Random stuff

Here is a link to my pictures.  I've posted about 150 pictures from Mt Meru & Kilimanjaro and another 100 from the safari.

Kilimanjaro = http://doubledmountainrunner.shutterfly.com/4837

Meru = http://doubledmountainrunner.shutterfly.com/4607

Safari = http://doubledmountainrunner.shutterfly.com/4750

Random notes – caution some questionable content and pictures!

Half of the fun (maybe more?) of the trip to Tanzania was having a lot of laughs with our group.  With 6 hours of hiking each day and meals, not to mention tight quarters, we had plenty of time to bond.  There were a lot of inside jokes and hi-jinks throughout the trip.  Here are a few of the memorable things that I thought were funny, of course my brain may have been fried by the altitude.

50/50 chance – EVERYTHING had a 50/50 chance, as in “Do you think it will rain?” to which the reply would always be “50/50 chance”.  There were only two outcomes, it either would or would not happen…hence a 50/50 chance.

With all due respect – The old joke is that any time you start a sentence with “With all due respect” you are essentially saying “You are not due any respect and what you are saying is stupid”.  So someone would say “With all due respect, you sir are an idiot”.  It never failed to crack me up.  Often times it was made stronger by suggesting that the person should go “shit in your hat”.

Fish melon – One of the many food items we could not identify.  Pretty sure it was in the melon family but it had a weird fishy smell.  You had to be pretty brave to try the fish melon.

1 to 9 hours – Everything takes from 1 to 9 hours.  Example: “How long will the hike take?” the answer is ALWAYS 1 to 9 hours.  “How long will the 50 mile drive take?” again, 1 to 9 hours.

Yes (or yes please) – Any question is invariably answered with “Yes” or “Yes, please”…even if it isn’t a yes or no question.  Example: “How much does this cost?”…”yes”

Jelly, peppers, cold chicken – of all of the weird things I ate on the trip, this was probably the most unusual.  I mixed together a Jelly (or was it Jam) and peppers sandwich with a hunk of cold chicken and came up with a very tasty lunch.  Lunches could become monotonous as we got the same food every day.

Fresh baked muffins – food was often a topic of discussion.  Every lunch had a small muffin that was invariably very stale.  The joke was something like “Oh, fresh baked muffins!  Fresh baked a month ago.”.

African Pizza – A great surprise, I ordered the African Pizza at the Weru Weru lodge and it was especially tasty.  African = pineapple & banana, not something I’d normally get but it was great, just the right mix of different sweetness from both.  Yummy!

That's what she said – used extensively to make even the most innocent expression into something dirty.  Example:  “My hands are sore from gripping the poles all day”….”That’s what she said”.

½ of ½ - Robert swore that any time we paid more than ½ of ½ of the listed price for anything we were paying too much.  The goal was to negotiate everything down as low as possible, I had fun trying to get the best deal possible.

"The special you gave me last time" – A negotiating tool, ask for the special you got last time you were there or the “normal” discount…despite the fact you’d never been there before.

The small 5 – Sort of the opposite of the “big 5”(Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard) that everyone wants to see in Africa.  The small five (as best I can remember) were: Dog, Cat, mouse, goat, and cow.

Simba/Pumba – Our guide on Meru kept offering encouragement during the climb and would say “You have the heart of Simba”, I added on “but smell like Pumba”.  Heart of Simba, smell of Pumba became our credo.

Even Action Dave got sick!

Hovenweep National Monument – 09/16/11 - This park had the worst park map I’ve ever seen.  I ended up doing a road run here due to confusion over where the damn trail went.  The 2 mile loop hike around the site was interesting and had some nice views.

Hovenweep means “deserted valley” and it sure seemed that way when I ran the very quiet road and could see a thunderstorm 20-30 miles off in the distance. 

 

Natural Bridges National Monument

Natural Bridges National Monument – 09/16/11 – This was another cool location, up on a mesa at 6,500’ with deep canyons and three bridges in sandstone formed from what was once an ancient sea.

After hiking to Kachina Bridge (1.4m with 400’ climb/descent) I set off for a run on the Mesa.  The ranger recommended staying off the canyon trails which were muddy and slick from rain the day before.  I decided it was best to be a bit cautious.  It worked out well as the trail from Kachina Bridge to the north trail junction and then from the Sipapu Bridge view and back south to Owachomo Bridge was a lot of fun.  There was plenty of up/down and some great sections of trail to run on.  I ran 4.5 miles on the Mesa trails (46:52) including a visit to Owachomo Bridge.

Canyonlands National Park & the Syncline Loop

Canyonlands National Park – 09/15/11 – 30 miles from Moab Utah to the Island in the Sky region of Canyonlands.  Over 300,000 acres of canyons, mesas, buttes, and arches. 

Self portrait

Heed the warning!

I decided to test myself on the Syncline loop trail “a long hot day hike over one of only three loop trails in the district” with 1,200’ of drop including some very steep scrambling into Upheaval canyon.  I should have known better than to do something that mentions “scrambling” but I figured I could handle it.  A lot of the trail followed dry washes and I had to be very “ON” to stay on the trail.  I didn’t see another person out there, but someone had hiked it within a day (I saw some foot prints) and it was fun to see where they went wrong and where I went wrong based on footprints.  I ran the trail clockwise taking only two short breaks.

Start of a very scary section

 The first break was in a really steep section of scramble where I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue on the trail.  I absolutely loved about 90% of the trail, 5% was tougher than I like, and 5% I was scared big time.  This was one of those 5% times and I just sat down, had some water and collected myself.  The views were spectacular and I was actually looking forward to the switch back climb the ranger had mentioned.  I hit the 4.9 mile trail junction in 1:22:28 which was a bit slower than I’d hoped.

I thought I could do the loop in 2-2.5 hours (it is a 6-8 hour hike).  I figured the 4.9 mile would be about half-way because there would be a lot of climbing in the last 3.4 miles.  I really must have been slow on the tough descent, I climbed out in 55:21 and was at the trailhead covering the loop in 2:20:11.  There were two parts on the climb that I was a little nervous scrambling and made full contact with the rock to make sure I didn’t slip.  All in all it was a blast!

heading up

Climbing up this lip was a bit scary

This section is the one I stopped on the way down.  Very rough and steep "scramble".

Arches National Park – 09/15/11 – 5 miles from Moab Utah.  Visited a bunch of overlooks then headed out to Devil’s Garden for a run out to Dark Angel and back including side trips to all the arches along this trail.  Devil’s Garden is the longest maintained trail in the park and accesses eight arches.  “Expect narrow ledges with rocky surfaces and scrambling over slickrock”. 

Mostly it was very run-able, with just a couple of “tricky” spots.  It was a very enjoyable run and I pretty much had the trail to myself (most don’t venture beyond the first couple of arches).  It took me 31:33 to run out to Dark Angel, including a couple of mistakes on the “rock fin” and 41:46 to come back with the added visits to the other Arches along the way.

Scary section of slickrock

Crossing a rock fin

Dark Angel - Isn't that a song by the Cult?

Black Canyon of the Gunison National Park

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park – 09/14/11 - drove the south rim drive and took in some of the views, then headed to the Warner Point nature trail at the highest point on the south rim.  The 1.5 mile out/back section had drops of over 2,700’ to the Gunnison River.

I ran 4 times out/back from 8,289’ to Warner point (8,300’) with 200’ of climb/descent in each direction.  I started out slowly (15:00) for loop 1 then decided that each lap would be faster than the one before it.  My next three laps were 13:50, 13:15, and 12:23.  I felt like I was flying on the last loop and man was my breathing ragged on the final couple of climbs!