Spent the week visiting colleges in south-eastern Atlantic states with Mark. Y'all come back now, ya hear?
Morning run in Barn Island. Primarily hit the single-track trails. Really fun place to run.
Noontime 1.5 miles in Woody Hill, with a chainsaw. There were four blown-down trees blocking the trail from Wahaneeta up towards Fern Drive; took out 3 of the 4; the final one easy to run around.
Afternoon flew out to NC with Mark.
Tuesday: 5
Umstead State Park, Raleigh, NC. Trails galore. Wish I had a lot more time before the first campus visit of the day, but I got myself disoriented as it was. Nice mix of forested double and single track.
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| Visit to NC State |
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| Fun trails in Umstead State Park |
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| Beautiful campus at UNC Chapel Hill |
Wednesday: 11
Myrtle Beach, SC. Barefoot beach run. Staying right on the beach, it was calling for me to come for a run in the morning. The beach just keeps going and going, so I was enjoying running it.
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| View from the hotel room balcony. Could have stayed here much longer. |
After going 5 1/2 miles, I thought I should be turning around and coming back for breakfast and start of the day. Shortly after turning around, I felt my feet starting to hurt. That's odd; I've only run 6 or so miles. Kept going, but the more I did, the more the feet hurt. What gives? I run more than this back home. A marked difference is here the beach was very hard packed sand and pulverized shells. About 8 miles I consider stopping and checking my feet, but then decided that won't help me to get back the remaining 3 miles. Looking around, the other runners I encounter are all wearing running shoes. Hmmm. I think about which surface will offer the least friction: hard-packed beach or running in the water, and decide on the latter. By the time I make it back to the hotel, my feet are quite blistered and would end up hurting for a couple of days.
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| I'm guessing the "hooves" are better adapted to soft sandy RI beaches |
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| Afternoon kayaking with Mark |
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| Of course, if you have an establishment like this ... |
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| ... you're bound to have characters like this show up. |
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| Had dinner here (NOT) |
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| Actually had dinner here (Mark in foreground) |
Shorter and slower run on Myrtle Beach, this time shod. Still a little pain, but nothing like yesterday.
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| Untimely flash flood while on our Univ of SC tour; several inches under this water is the walkway |
Friday: 0
In Georgia for the final day of campus visits. Got up for my run at 5. Pitch dark, pouring rain, roads literally had no shoulders - that was enough excuses for me to bag the run and catch another 45 minutes of shut-eye.
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| Final visit: picturesque Univ of Georgia At the end of the tour, how appropriate or inappropriate was it that they blasted "Teenage Wasteland"? (timeless "Baba O'Reilly" from the Who) |
Saturday: 8
Woody Hill solo morning run. Love running in Woody, and the trail cleared of blown-down trees gave me satisfaction as well. The Pumpkins course is looking great! What a change from the spring. Excited and nervous at the same time that this is coming to fruition so soon.
Sunday: 8
Grills trails with Matthew. We ran the WHS X-C course first, as he has a meet there Tuesday. After the XC course, we ventured over to the Hopkinton side and back. I have no chance against Matthew on non-technical double-track, but the old man can hold his own on the Hopkinton hilly technical single-track.
Weekly mileage total: 49
Good experience and time with Mark. Based on our visits, he "narrowed" down his list from about 25 colleges to the 8 he will apply to in October. I guess I'll be working for a while.
Happy to get in another ~50 mile week, plus run in some new areas. Refreshed the blog header to put in a pic from a fall race. Which race is it?
Glad you made it to my Crab Shack! The race is Avondale.
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