I was looking forward to running the Till-We-Meet-in-Hell course today. I brought my camera to take photos for the invite/info for the event. I was pretty sure I'd regret not putting screws in my Inov8s. It actually diddn't matter since I left them home (put them down to visit Ally Kat). It's a good thing my car is loaded with junk I forget to take in; I found a pair of my old road shoes. Not only are they my least-treaded, they have elastics for the laces, but I was just happy to be able to run.
Not a quarter of a mile in, I heard chainsaws. Ugh! Last week Linda, Beth, and I met up with a logger scouting out the place. I thought he said they wouldn't be to my trail for a while. I kept running. The chainsaws had quieted. I think it must have been lunch break. When I got to my favorite single track, the portion of the course that is so special, it was almost unrecognizable. The natural obstacles had been removed and the loggers' rubble clogged the trail. It look like they'd been in with a bulldozer. My heart sank.
I ran along as best I could. It is a short loop and soon I was on a very runnable section. All I could think was that the race would be canceled. As I made my way towards the once cool section again, the chainsaws started up. I was too chicken to keep going. So I started this figure-eight shaped "loop". As I repeated that a couple of times, I decided to look for an alternate course for the event. My spirits started to rebound a bit; it's fun to explore.
I think I can put together a plan-B. I still hope it won't be necessary. I plan on heading over there on Sunday and trying to save my original course. It could be undone in a day (made obvious by how much damage had been done since Thursday), but I'd still like to try to salvage it.
As I finished up my run, I came up behind a hunter. I announced myself. Though it was a little disconcerting at first, he was very nice. He asked me if I'd seen any of his 3 companions. No. Man, it turns out they've probably been out there with me since the end of regular deer season. I decided to wear orange right through mid-December from now on.
There will be a Till-We-Meet-in-Hell race. It may be on less single track and go through areas with more college-student garbage and, if the logging messes that up, we could move it to Thorncrag and have the post-run festivities at the Auburn Gritty's. I'm not giving up on Gorham just yet.
Oh, yeah, I got in just over 7 miles.
A 7 in the brush is worth more than 4 touring the Christmas lights of five million dollar homes.
ReplyDeleteYes they've done that on both side of Hardy road, which were my go-to trails. It really does feel like a punch in the abdomen. We had a fun race last spring on some of these and it added to the fun because it was hard to find the trail on the other side of the cut (the course was unmarked, which was part of the event!)
ReplyDeleteyou do know how it feels, Jeff. I know we can still have fun. Just disappointed that everyone missed out on what was.
ReplyDelete