Monday, March 05, 2007

A Good Week on the Trails

Well, we had another decent week of Trail Nerd activities and running.

Last Tuesday night, we had a decent run in Shawnee Mission Park. This was the last time that we'll meet at 6 p.m, for a while. We're changing our night runs to 7:00 p.m., starting this week.

Thursday night, we participated in a talk in Topeka at Great Plains Running Company, regarding trailrunning. There were some good questions asked by the attendees.

Saturday, we ran at Perry Lake on Willie Lambert's Rock Creek trail series (5K & 10K) course. David Wakefield and Matt showed-off these fine trails.

Sunday's training run was again at the Clinton Lake North Shore trails. Some of us ran 21 miles, and Kyle, Greg, and Gary ran a few more. These trails are where we will host the first annual "Free State Trail Runs" on April 28th. We have three events that day: a Trail Marathon, a 40-miler and a 100-Kilometer race. If you want to see the course and trails (first hand) prior to the race, please come and run with us at 7:15 a.m. on most Sundays...we'll be there.

FreeStateCourseMapSmall

The Free State event is going to be a lot of fun. Even though the work and logistics involved for this is seemingly never-ending, it's fun to be involved with it's creation, and get new ideas and work-out issues while we actually run on the course each week!

On another track:
My personal mileage hasn't been up-to-snuff, lately. I've only been putting in 40-45 miles/week. I've decided to crank it up to 50+ miles/week and keep it there for the foreseeable future. This week, it won't be a problem. I'll be running over 10 miles on Saturday, and 30 on Sunday (just 1-month out from the Rockin' K 50-miler). This week's total mileage should be above 60 miles.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Strangest Things Seen on a Trail Run

Some of the strangest things (that I can post about) that I've seen on trail runs:

Pot-smoking paraphenelia.

Teen/twenty-somethings pot-smoking in the woods. (Well, not so strange, after all).

A wedding veil.

A live human, playing "army man" while laying on the side of the trail, after dark.

A horseshoe welded to a 3/4-inch box-end wrench. Whatdaheck???

A dead raccoon, hanging from a branch

A dead, bloated raccoon on the ground, that Kyle and James just missed stepping on.

A dead, bloated possum on the ground.

Various other dead or "skeletanized" animals.

Many live animals, including poisonous snakes that I've had to jump over.

A hive of mad, bald-faced hornets looking to sting any passing trailrunner (at the MN Voyageur 50-miler).

A dog with 3 legs trying to keep up with me, and doing a fair job of it.

A couple "coupling" in the back of an SUV on a cold winter day. The park ranger was at the trail head, waiting for them to finish (so he could have a word with them). Remember that one, Kyle?

Various other half-dressed couples caught fornicating in the woods.

Turtles mating in the middle of the trail...(for hours and hours).

A beaver gnawing on a tree.

A really large flock of wild turkeys taking off in the middle of the night (from their roosts), and us listening to them loudly crash into tree trunks.

Two passed-out Wakarusa (music festival) fans who'd partially set up a tent in the middle of the North Shore Trail in Lawrence, KS.

Debbie slapping the hell out of Julie. Julie slapping the hell out of Debbie. (They used the excuse of a biting horsefly).

A large, normally gleeful Russian ultrarunner not clearing a tree branch, yet again.

A large, semi-conscious Russian ultrarunner laying on his back on the ground, yet again.

A male trailrunner wearing a "Little Red Riding Hood" outfit. A trailrunner wearing a Darth Vader helmet. A trailrunner impersonating a large Russian ultrarunner. (Okay, it WAS Halloween).

A male trailrunner wearing panty hose in an attempt to keep ticks off of his legs.

I could tell you some other things that I've seen before, but I couldn't post them in this media due to FCC rules, the laws of my fair State, and the basic laws of Nature. I'll tell you out on a trail run, sometime.

What about you? What have you seen on a trail run?

Happy trails,

Bad Ben