After receiving 8+ inches of fresh snow Friday night, I decided to meet Courtney Baker, Brandon Russell, Gavin White, and my brother at the Kendall Lake Sports Center for a day full of snowshoeing. After renting snowshoes from here for my first time about a month ago, I was really looking forward to doing it again. You can’t beat all day rental for $5!
We started off by heading over to Kendall Hills and then continued off-trail in that direction for quite some time. After about an hour and a half of aimless wandering we decided to turn around and attempt to navigate our way back to Kendall Lake. We finished up with about 3 hours total and got in a lot of big climbs and downhills. It looks like I might be doing this again next weekend too because they’re calling for another big snow storm Tuesday night that will dump an additional 6-9 inches on us.
Click Here to view the rest of the photos I took today.
I met my brother at the Happy Days lodge this evening and we ran to the Pine Grove loop and back for a total of 5 miles. Just wanted to get the body moving again after this past weekend's runs. Felt good.. no issues.
It all started yesterday morning when I headed over to Pine Lane by myself to attempt a back-to-back 50K in consecutive days. This was my plan after finding out that Tanya Cady was organizing a Winter Buckeye Trail FA 50K for this Saturday. The only difficulty… low temps were forecasted to be in the single digits on both days with high temps only reaching the teens. Not really a problem, but it definitely added to the challenge.
Since I was starting my run from Pine Lane, my first challenge was to get past the large water crossing about a mile or so into the run. After running downstream to see if there was an easy way to cross I realized that there wasn’t going to be an easy way. The snowmelt from our last warm-up had added a lot of water to the stream and despite all the cold weather we’ve had recently, there was still a lot of flowing water and thin ice. I eventually decided to cross the stream where there was a rock in the center, just in case the ice began to break. As I stepped across I could hear the ice slowly crack so I hurried across and luckily made it without getting wet.
I continued heading north on the Buckeye Trail and realized that the first 4-5 miles were very rutted up from the recent warm-up and freeze that followed. I told myself to pay special attention to areas where the trail had frozen over but still had water/slush underneath. Even with this in mind, I eventually made the mistake of stepping in the wrong spot and soaked my right foot. This normally wouldn’t be a problem with wool socks on, but since the temperature was around 10-12 degrees I knew I had to quickly change into new socks that I had brought along in my Camelbak.
I picked up the pace and soon made it to the Boston Store (4 miles in) where I stopped for a moment to get dry. The lady inside thought I was crazy for being out in the cold and told me that I was the first visitor of the day. After changing into new socks, I continued heading north on the trail. I made it all the way to the stream crossing before Snowville Rd. and decided to turn around because this crossing was even more difficult to navigate than the last and I didn’t feel like getting wet for a second time.
Once I arrived back at the Boston Store I decided to run some of the Brandywine Trail and the Towpath. After doing this for awhile my mileage was beginning to near 20 and with the middle of the afternoon closing in I was starting to get very hungry. So, I decided to take the Towpath east towards the town of Peninsula and head up the old brick road back to my car at Pine Lane. I finished up with 20 miles (a little short of my goal) but decided to save the rest of my energy for Saturday’s 50K.
The next morning I met a group of about 15 people at the Oak Grove Pavillion in Brecksville for the 7am start of the Winter Buckeye Trail 50K FA. I ran with Mike George for the first half, all the way to the Boston Store where he had to stop early. From there I ran the last 10 miles or so with Mark Anson. I felt good throughout most of the day despite running 20 miles the day before, so I was very happy about that! Mark and I did the last 10 miles at a fairly easy pace since we were tired and not in any rush, and finished up in 8 hours and 26 minutes.
Jeff and I met at Happy Days today and took the Ledges Trail over to the Octagon. From there we headed over to Kendall Lake, did a loop around the lake, and finished up with 6 miles. With the recent warm-up we’ve been having lately, the highly traveled trails were very icy. This should all melt tomorrow though when it rains and temps rise to near 50.
This evening my brother and I met at the Happy Days parking lot for an off-piste trail run. We decided to head north over the steep hillside on the far end of the parking lot and do some exploring over there. The snow had a nice crusty layer on top which made the downhills very fun and manageable. We did a lot of bushwhacking and found some awesome hills and ridges to climb up as we headed north towards Akron Peninsula Rd. The one thing that we both noticed were a lot of very nice game trails made by deer in this area. We also noticed that these trails usually ended up being a good route to take and put us where we wanted to be. Deer might be stupid on the road, but they’re pretty smart in the woods!
When we reached the top of this one high point and looked north we could see a pretty massive hill not too far from us. It looked pretty challenging and tempting, but we both wanted to get back at a decent time so we turned around at this point and headed back to our cars, basically completing one big loop in an hour and a half. Just after crossing the main stream for the last time and before we headed up our final climb, I had to stop for a moment and take a picture of the moon resting on top of the ridge we were about to climb up….
It was the perfect way to end a fun evening and I’m already looking forward to exploring more of this area another time.
This morning I met a couple “trail newbies”, Kevin and Kirstie Farley, at Kendall Lake for a trail run over at Camp Manatoc. By the end of the run however, I found out and I think they also found out that they are better running on trails (and off-trail) than they once thought.
We started by picking up the yellow Boy Scout trail right next to Truxell Road. Then we followed that up to the “Kendall View” sign and continued on over to Lake Litchfield. After running down a ridge that led to a dead-end with the lake on both sides of us, we backtracked and ran around the lake and up to the administration building near the maintenance area.
Then we continued over to the climbing tower, made our way through the Manatoc Council Ring, and finished up our 4 mile loop by going off-piste and reconnecting with the trail we started on. Here's Kirsite practicing her balance at the obstacle course...
Just after passing through the Manatoc Council Ring we then spotted this large deer…
Back at Kendall Lake, Kirstie and Kevin called it a day since they had just done a long run yesterday. I decided to continue on though and drove over to Happy Days to see if Wild Bill Wagner was still running around collecting trail markings that were used during this past weekend’s Run for Regis 50K. I didn’t see his car there so I ran over to the Ledges Trail and put in another 5 miles to the Pine Grove Trail and back, for a total of 9 miles for the day.
Then I headed over to the Winking Lizard and took advantage of a lunch special they had by ordering a delicious Bayou Burger topped with spices and lots of mushrooms. Any vacation day is certainly enjoyable, but today was one of those days that was extra fun! To view a few other photos from the day, click here.
I headed over to my fitness center after lunch today and got in a workout while watching some NFL playoff action on TV. I set the treadmill at the maximum 15% incline and decided to “up the ante” a bit by alternating between 10 minutes of walking at 3 mph and 5 minutes of running at 4 mph. Towards the end I could tell I gave my legs a good solid workout but still felt strong and pain free. I love that feeling of walking on flat ground again after climbing for a straight hour!
We started off by heading over to Kendall Hills and then continued off-trail in that direction for quite some time. After about an hour and a half of aimless wandering we decided to turn around and attempt to navigate our way back to Kendall Lake. We finished up with about 3 hours total and got in a lot of big climbs and downhills. It looks like I might be doing this again next weekend too because they’re calling for another big snow storm Tuesday night that will dump an additional 6-9 inches on us.
