18 Great Bradbury Miles*

Lots of Monsters ran long at Pineland today.  I almost wanted to join them, but things have been going so well with running at Bradbury that I decided to stick with it.  I'll get in my fill of Pineland on May 29th (I hope!).  Besides, I'll soon have lots of company at Bradbury; after the Pineland races are over, the Saturday group runs will be back to Brad.

My heart sank just a little when I pulled into the parking lot.  There was a group assembling for an event.  A banner proudly proclaimed, "Teens to Trails."  I saw a small group of men with clipboards and went up to them to ask which trails they were going to be on.  One of them replied something like, "All of them."  I think my face probably showed my disappointment.  They quickly added that the kids wouldn't be in my way.  I explained that I wanted to be out of their way.  I wrongly assumed it was a mountain bike race.  Turns out it was an Outdoors Club on an orienteering-type race.  Their event went from 9 - 12.  OK, cool.

To give my run a little bit of extra purpose, I decided to check out a couple little variations on Mindy's 40 for 40 loop to see what would get closest 8 miles.  The first lap came in right at 8.21.  Not bad.  The next one, I took out the Bat Cave Loop and added one to Ginn West.  The Garmin read 7.87.  Even better.  If you add the little bit to get to and from the campsite, I bet that would be very close to 8.

The run itself went really well.  I was surprised by having sunshine.  Just when I started to worry that I was going to be hot and may not have brought enough fluids, the sky clouded over and a cool breeze blew.  I saw a couple of kids on their orienteering quest late in my first lap, but saw lots in my second.  The only problem they presented was having to be more careful when I needed to pee.  Other than that, they provided some good distraction.

I was a little surprised to see two superheros running towards me on Lanzo.  I wish I could get my camera out in time to get a shot.  They probably were running the fastest of all the competitors.  Well, they were superheros.  Later in that same lap, I came across two pickles up where Ginn West becomes Ginn East.  They posed for me.  The girl pickle was a welcomed sight; the only other girls I saw were sitting on rocks (very early into their competition) eating.  The pickle team seemed to be working hard.

A little over 15 miles in, I took my first fall since the snow melted.  Once I figured out that I wasn't really hurt, I got a chuckle out of it.  I fell in the exact spot that Mindy had when we ran on Wednesday.  However, I didn't roll nicely like Mindy.  I landed a bit awkwardly, sort of twisting my back.  Almost felt like I had an adjustment.   I'm heading back this week with a saw to deal with that dark little stump in the trail!

Little guy was very reluctant to get off the bridge

guess he'd been munching out

orienteerers

Pickles

After the run, I met up with Jeremy and Mindy at E & L's.  We rehashed our runs while enjoying turkey reubens.  What a day!

*Originally titled, "Bradelicious 18", till I realized I didn't coin the word.  Oops!