No Pics or Profile..But a lot of Mud

Sorry...The Saturday Run had no pictures and I forgot to turn my garmin back on after goat hill so no real elevation and distance profile...That said

Saturday was our first real day to run on the trails this year in some really sloppy conditions. A group of 10 met at the Cool Firestation for to run portions of the Way Too Cool Course. Nichols lead the 26mile group. Today though we had the pleasure of Ernie Takahashi joining us..Ernie is a guy to look up to..mid 60's and still running a 3:20marathon and very good 50k,50miles. He got the ok to run his first 100k so he was out with the group that was great.

I had been taking it easy since Wed monitoring some minor lower leg issues..I wanted to get the long run in today and Sunday. So I choose to go right to the back of the pack and just stay there. It really turned out pretty good. From the Firestation we ran down quarry trail to quarry road then up Browns Bar to ALT. Achilles was really tight climbing up Browns..here I started to run the next 6 miles with Mike Hernanadez...it was perfect pace to stretch things out! I quized him on his badwater and states runs...told him the year I passed rena at states that we used his lead as a goal to catch him before the finish...So this was nice to get to 10miles at ALT..
Here I made decision to just make the most of the slick,muddy conditions. So off we went down Ball Bearing..that was not fun. Here we heard some runners from behind and it was Rena and 3 others that had turned and wanted to run with us....
My strongest portion of the day was from the base of ball bearing and returning to browns via quarry road...I was moving fast and dropping the group. Moderate climbs here and I was enjoying this. From Browns it was time to climb that one more time and this time it was easy....Next stop climb up goat hill. Always tough on me and here Mike and another runner caught me at the top. We saw the Nichols aid station and stopped there for a second. Now since I have been taking Vespa I just want to keep focused and running on these days again was no different. I told Mike I was heading out and they where going to be close behind....

I said it was muddy...Well..just past Goat on a Steep downhill..it was slick mud...As slid down this section I was yelling MUDE LUGE!!! Being by myself I was hoping Mike would hear the warning..not less than a minute later I heard a roar of laughter from behind..They must have found the LUGE....That was the last I heard of them that day...perhaps they fell here but for the next 4miles I ran on my own..I did have a little fatigue from Hwy 49 up the hill to Cool. But I was impressed with the second half of the run...Total distance was about 18.5 miles.
Today I will try and see how the legs react for a 16mile run on the AR trail. It is cooler today so I will have a later start...Have fun all.

Tony