Parsalmouth anyone?

No, I'm not speaking Parsalmouth to attract all these snakes. I thought Lorrin was the snake whisperer! I ran over one on the towpath yesterday between Violette's Lock and Pennyfield Lock, and then I saw this guy! He was beautiful!

Gunpowder Falls 50k FatA$$

Mark, Sharlene and I headed up north of Baltimore to the Gunpowder Falls state park for a low key 10-mile loop race. Mark & Sharlene just wanted to do 20, but this was the last good training run for me before Masochist! I had forgotten how incredibly pretty the course is.

Miles 1 - 3ish
From the parking lot, you head through a couple miles of rolling fern-covered hillsides, with a little creek winding past. Then you cross the road that goes into the park and head up a slightly inclined forest road, past some archery ranges. A fun descent is followed by some more climbing, then a footpath by the river, going upstream. You want to look at the Gunpowder but it's just rocky enough to make you keep your eyes on the trail.

Miles 3 - 6ish
The extremely well-stocked aid station is just after you cross a bouncy bridge, in a parking lot. Even though it was a fata$$ it was better stocked than Promise Land! You then do a lot of climbing, through deciduous forest, over a couple of creeks, and through a powerline area. I saw some really pretty little blue butterflies here. Next you descend on a paved road, probably less than a mile, until you turn right back along the river for about a mile. You return to the aid station again.

Miles 6 - 9.?? (so apparently it's not a true 50k, but it's still hard!)
From the aid station, you cross an iron bridge, then run along the riverside downstream. Here it's really grassy but pretty flat running. You finally get to York road, scramble up the embankment (because the frontrunners kicked over a hornets nest on the trail) then run across the bridge on a scary road where cars go fast. Back into the woods, returning upstream, but you head up the hill into the deciduous forest, with more ferns. When there was a nice breeze, yellow birch leaves would cascade from the trees - ahhh, fall! If only it wasn't 85 degrees! Once you drop down to the river, and pass an ampitheatre thing on the left, you are really close to the bathroom and the looooong paved path back to the parking lot.
Repeat 3x!

I did much better than I thought - maybe heat training from Baker, maybe because the course is a little short, but I came in at 6:13! Two years ago I ran the course in something like 6:58. I was able to keep moving pretty well, and concentrated on running the upslopes even if I didn't feel like it. Sharlene and Mark ran their 2 loops and both were happy to have nice runs and their injuries didn't act up.

Serge Arbona won in something like 3:55. Mark saw a snake (next to my foot) and I saw a snake (frantically trying to get out of my path on the trail!).

Then Sharlene, Mark & I went to the super-mega Wegman's for some celebratory food and coffee!

Parks Half, Helvetia, etc.

The Parks Half Marathon is over and what a great day it was to run! I've heard all went well. Some of us were running and some volunteering and I think we'd all say we had a good day out there. Here are a few pictures from where Mark, Paul and I spent our part of the race - course layout and cone distribution. Paul and I were on Truck S where we put out and then picked up 1141 cones! Mark was on Truck T which put out 918 cones. This does not include the start and finish line areas, that's a lot of cones!

And last weekend, Joe, Megan and I went to Helvetia, WV, for the Helvetia Fair on Saturday and the Helvetia 10k Mountain Run on Sunday. We had a great time watching the very short parade and hanging out at the fair on Saturday. There were a number of folks staying at Dan and Jody's so we all hung out and ate and drank into the night on Saturday. Megan and Joe ran the race on Sunday - I think this was Joe's first official race back since his injury. Congrats Joe! They were sweeping and taking down course markings so they both got to go at an easy pace on this very challenging course. Here are pictures from the Helvetia weekend. Check out the results of the race. This is not the 10k to do if you are looking for a PR! It's 2 miles flat, 2 miles up hill, and then 2 miles down hill.


Lastly, in other news, I'm still recovering from my stress fracture. It's been a little over a month since I injured myself. I've gotten lots of good advice and info from others that have had stress fractures, thanks Caren, Amanda and Wayne! The best thing about being injured is I haven't had to get up at 5:30 am for 6:30 runs! And I've also gotten to ride my bike A LOT! I've learned important biking skills like avoiding snakes on the towpath, riding with your mouth closed at dusk on the towpath so you don't suck in the bugs, and slowing down real fast so you don't run over squirrels or run into deer that run in front of you. I actually had one snake try to strike at me, fortunately it missed and I did not drive into the canal! Here is a picture I took of a different snake on the same ride. This is taken with my camera phone so the quality isn't good, I have no idea what it is. The only down side to being injured is that I miss running with my friends!! I plan to be back out there soon!

Catoctin Bike/Run

When Mical & Paul find out how Joe raged *UP* the steep trails of Catoctin, they are going to be mad that he's not on their venture quest team!

Multi-sport Weekend

Just thought I'd report on our action-packed weekend! Saturday, Lorrin and I ran the VHTRC Women's Half Marathon and kicked some butt out there on a very warm day. The trails were in great shape and as always, it was a challenging race! Paul and I followed that up with a loop around the mountain bike trails at Fountainhead as we get ready for Venture Quest. It was a tough ride for me, but we (well, I) struggled through and it took us about 1:50 for the 7 mile loop we did at VQ last year (pretty slow, but I was pretty dead). Sunday, Lorrin, Paul and I took the kayaks out for an hour at Black Hills and Lorrin tried to teach us some paddling skills... I still fear my arms are going to fall off at VQ this year! Paul and I then headed over to an orienteering meet in Patapsco State Park. We plan to get back there to mtb someday- very pretty park, but alot of hills! We ran an intermediate course and took about an hour and a half to get all the 13 controls. The last sport for the weekend was drinking Punkin Ale at Dogfish Head...

More Baker Trail Pictures

Check out the so-called steep-slope cable climb and some pictures of increasingly soaked Mical & Lorrin on the Baker Trail Images page.