Sunday, April 26, 2009

Week 2 in the Canyons-Lots of Folks and good talk

This is a short note this morning. A second weekend of running from Michigan Bluff to Swinging Bridge and back. Its a short 18 but a lot of downhill and uphill making this a good training run for the future...Which had me thinking today as I was slowly moving up from the river to the deadwood cemetary. The phrase "you have to walk before you can run". This day was cold in the mid 30's as I arrived to see Rena getting ready for our run starting at Michigan Bluff. She of course was greeted by the dog mayor of MB--Archie. We where later joined by Karyn Hoffman and made our way down to the river with me in the lead..not to comfy with that but I knew I would slow down once I started my climb...I had my second sighting of Rory this week...a very graceful runner as she was heading down on her way to Last Chance..She sure made a impression on all of us runners out there by her ease in which she ran..No chance for any real talk here but one day :)

As the climb began I let Rena and Karyn go and focused on me improving my time to the cemetary..About this time I spotted Bill Finkbeiner, Wayne Miles and Mike Huff running and powerwalking from behind..I let them catch me and pass...I then jumped on their train since I figured I could learn something here..which I did and the climb to Deadwood was much better than last week! As we chatted at the water pump and then made our way to Devils Thumb and the downhill to swinging bridge I was feeling better and comfortable. Once the downhill started Bill and Wayne just smoked me and ran very lightly on the steep descent. I was running too rigid and slow to keep up..note to self (better downhill running please)..Heading up from the bridge was Paul Charteris taking "action" photos' of all of us as ran down..I stopped and chatted with him and swung on down to the bridge, Rena, Karyn, Bill and Wayne where waiting..they where all turning back so off we went. I stuck with them for a short while and we ran into Mark Lantz,Eric Skaden and Marty Hoffman..It was a real running party out there! Feeling better as I got to the top but with the same time as last week I ran much better from the Waterpump down to the river more speed and relaxed. That just left the climb to MB..Well that was better but not by much..some running but still a slow time..As I said I have to walk before I can run...As I got to MB my time was much better than last week and I felt pretty good. Being in the busy city of Michigan Bluff..population hmmm about 100? which includes at least 15 dogs and horses! We had a chance to talk to a few locals as we waited for Lantz and Skaden..that was fun. More of the same next week...Tony

2 comments:

  1. I was just about to say what a great running party have going on. Seems like running trails is what everybody does in your town. Here, they all go shopping. Ugh!

    Great job on the improved time.

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  2. Stephanie..nothing wrong with shopping. We sure need more folks to buy more right now..NOCAL does have a lot of folks that love trail running so it is pretty easy to get into the running community here. Memorial Day weekend training runs will be packed this year...and WS will be a lot of excitement. Tony

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