Good Timing

Rick and I headed to Gorham for our run today. He wanted to get in around seven miles. I wanted to run slightly less, but work on the trail. We'd planned to leave the house around 8am to ensure we'd be back in time for the Giant game. That turned out to be a non-issue because the Minnesota stadium's roof collapsed with too much snow so the game had to be postponed. The weather forecast made us push to get out even earlier; heavy rains were on the way. The dark sky spit on the car's windshield on and off during the ride down, but, when we parked at USM, it looked like the sun might come out.

My idea was to show Rick the race course by running it with him a couple times and then head back to the car to get the rake. The course is easy enough to follow that 2x through and he should be good on his own. The logging made it impossible to run for the portion of the course where they're working. It was even hard to walk over. Rick said, "There's no way you're gonna get this cleaned up." I didn't disagree. My only hope for that loop is for the logging this week to clear this up a bit. I don't hold out much hope.

So, I took him on the alternate course for our second lap. Since I'm less familiar with that, we got a little off and had to climb over more crap and cross more water than I wanted. I could tell Rick wasn't impressed with this section; he wanted to get in a good run. So when we got back to the start, I showed him a very runnable short loop (still fun with a good hill). I went back to find the better path for the alternate. I think I have it. If the weather lets up tomorrow, I'll go over it a few more times while Sam takes a final.

Then I headed back to the car to get the rake. I raked a stretch of trail that is hard to follow because it is twisty, single track (very), and leaf-covered and is in both possible courses. Rick headed through; he just had one more lap and he'd join me. I was nearly done by the time he got back. Good timing; the sky started to spit again. Back to the car, the rain started in earnest.


Between the 1 and 2 is the profile of my favorite loop (still a remote possibility). Between 4 and 5 is the alternate loop.

Oh! And my mileage for the year is now 1900.9!