Happy Days to Kendall Hills

I headed over to the Happy Days Visitor Center during the middle of the day and ended up meeting two other runners that were also starting from there.  Ironically, both of their names were Brian too.  I thought that was pretty funny.  We ended up running over to the Pine Grove loop and then over to Kendall Hills, before finishing up with 9 miles.  It was a great day to be outside – mid 50’s and warm sunshine.  Trails were very muddy in spots though.  Hopefully the warm up at the end of next week will dry things up.

After my run I met my friend Bob and his son Shamus for some hiking in the ledges area.  Here’s a picture of Shamus crossing a stream.

Signed up for Oil Creek 100!

This past weekend I signed up for the 2nd Annual Oil Creek 100 Miler, which will take place in Oil Creek State Park (located between Titusville and Oil City) on October 16th. I ran the 50 miler at last year's inaugural event and enjoyed it so much that I decided to step up to the challenge of the 100 miler this year. Participants are given 32 hours to finish a course which totals close to 18,000 ft. of elevation gain!

Frazee House to Bedford

This morning I ran with Bob Baldwin for the first time and his friend PJ Moore.  We started at the Frazee House at 9am and took the Buckeye Trail east all the way to Bedford before turning around.  Temperature was very nice in the 50’s with sunshine.  We ended up with 16 miles and even got some off-piste climbing in.  I’ve been very happy with my recent mileage.  This run gave me a total of 66 miles logged for the past week since Saturday. 

West Branch Run

This afternoon I met Bob Combs and his son Shamus over at West Branch State Park in Ravenna.  We got in about 6 miles and enjoyed above average temperatures in the mid 60’s.

Happy Days to Pine Grove

I met Greg Murray at the Happy Days Lodge this evening and we ran over to the Pine Grove loop and back for 5 1/2 miles.  It was a beautiful, warm, spring like day.  Was able to see a great sunset also.

Click here to view the rest of my photos from today.

Bedford Reservation

This morning I met Dan Bellinger at the Frazee House for a run on the Buckeye Trail. We took the BT east all the way over to “Viaduct Park” (which is really cool by the way) in Bedford and then turned around for a total of 15 miles. The waterfalls were flowing awesome due to recent rain and snowmelt. I really enjoyed this run and got to see a lot of areas in the Bedford Reservation that I only previously saw at night. I was also happy how well my body felt following my 24 miler on Saturday.

Click here to view the rest of the photos I took today.

Covered Bridge FA

I woke up bright and early this morning at 5am for the Covered Bridge FA, which takes place in Mill Creek Park (Youngstown, OH) and is organized each year by the N.E. Ohio Trail Club.  My sister Jamie and I arrived at the Lily Pond parking lot around 6 o’clock and everyone began running at 6:15, which was the optional early start time.  Others arrived for the official 8am start time.  There were a decent amount of people that showed up, including a few new faces. 

The weather was awesome – 50 degrees with a cool breeze.  It only got chilly when it was raining and the wind picked up, but there weren’t many times when the rain was very heavy.  The trails were also in pretty good shape.  There was a lot of water and mud but about 95% of the ice on the trail had melted.  Much better than in previous years when the trail had solid inches of ice on it.

I ended up doing 3 loops and one big bear section for a total of 24 miles.  Click here to view final ‘results’ and some photos from the day.

Downtown and back

I met my sister at my parent’s house in Warren this evening and we did our usual “Imperial and back” run which is a 5 mile out and back route on pavement to where the old Imperial motel used to be.  We ran at a pretty decent pace and my legs felt good during and after.

Red Rock Canyon

Before flying into Las Vegas yesterday, my friend Bill Billock and I had planned to meet and do a trail run in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, which is only about 15-20 miles from the Vegas Strip.  He picked me up from my hotel in the early afternoon and we started our run from the visitor center parking lot.  After talking with an employee there we decided to do the 11 mile “Grand Circle” loop.  The scenery was awesome, with beautiful rock cliffs and sandstone.  During our run we noticed rain clouds all around us (mainly above the mountaintops) but we never ended up feeling a drop.  The funny thing was when we had finished and got back to our car, we noticed that the ground was soaked at the visitor center while we were out on the trail.

Click Here to view all the photos taken during our run

Happy Days to Pine Grove

I headed over to the Happy Days Lodge around 6:30 tonight and did a solo run over to the Pine Grove trail. Did one loop of this trail and then headed back to my car after running a loop around the big field next to the Overlook for a total of 5 1/2 miles. These trails are heavily used so the snow was packed down nicely and made for very runable conditions. One more warm day or a little rain though and they're going to be a sheet of ice.

A scary thing happened early in the run as I was running the ledges trail... Just before the small bridge leading up to the Ice Box Cave I slipped on a very icy downhill section and my legs went airborne. Usually I pay special attention to this area since the ledge next to the trail blocks any snow from falling here, thus leaving nothing but ice from any snow melt. The fall sent me flying backwards and briefly hit the back of my head. For a second it felt like everything was in slow motion. Thankfully it was only a glancing blow and my arms/elbows took the brunt of the fall. As I sat on the ground stunned for a second, I thought to myself that I was lucky it wasn't any worse considering nobody else was with me at the time. These kind of experiences are a good reminder that you need to be ready to take full responsibility of your actions on the trail and be ready to respond accordingly.