Four of a Kind

This weekend, I ran both days at Bradbury, making four runs all at the Brad for the week.  Saturday, Rick and I headed over not expecting to find a lot of other Monsters, thinking that a group was running the Pemi Loop.  Dave Bidler, a runner I ran with once at Bradbury last year, was already in the parking lot.  Soon after, Jim showed up.  I just expected he'd be one of the Pemi group, but he was planning on 4x the last loop of the Breaker as training for the Escarpment.  Then Alan and Karen showed up.  Jim attacked the mountain, while the rest of us headed across the street to run the Scuffle.  We stayed together till somewhere on Fox East, when Karen and Alan decided to take the pace down a bit.

Dave, Rick and I ran along talking about our running over the year.  I took out my camera on the bridge on the when I saw the irises in bloom.

prettier in person

Turning off the Snowmobile Trail, back towards Knights Woods, we met Erin, Mary with Ruby, Christine with Susie, and...another runner with Christine that I can't place (sorry) starting the Scuffle.

Rick lead the rest of the way in.  I noticed he picked up the pace as we went.  Then, he stopped dead, "There's your bird!"  I immediately got my camera ready, heading to where Rick was pointing.  Sure enough, the pileated woodpecker was on a tree trunk just ahead.  By the time I could get off a shot, he'd gone around the tree.  He kept working his way up.  Still, I did manage a couple of shots.

Back in the parking lot, we said bye to Dave.  I decided to run up the Switch Back to see if I could catch Jim somewhere heading up the Boundary.  When I didn't see him on the stretch approaching South Ridge, I reassessed the time and figured he'd more likely be heading up the Summit, so I headed down.  I caught Jim and Alan midway up.  Jim kept trying to moon me, but the camera refused to work for most of that : )

Good thing Alan's in this pic...otherwise people might think I was bigfoot hunting!

both Alan and Jim ran all the way

They continued on up and I on down.  Rick and Karen were chatting at the picnic tables.

Today (well, Sunday), Ian, Danielle, and I planned on getting in some miles together.  When I got to the park, Danielle was waiting in the parking lot, but Ian and Jim were running up to the summit.  Danielle and I both had opted for long-sleeve shirts; it was damp, misty (with some rain now and again), and right about 50 degrees.  As soon as Ian and Jim got back, we set off on the Boundary Trail.  The plan was to introduce Danielle to the Connector up till the power lines.  Jim peeled off a couple miles in; he'd already gotten his miles in for the day.

It wasn't long into the run, that I regretted the long sleeves.  Aside from the wrong clothing choice, I appreciated the weather.  The rain/mist seemed to keep the bugs away.  And 50s beats 80s any day.

On the way back, Ian asked if we minded checking out another trail.  Both Danielle and I were game.  The trails were very similar to the connector, but added a cool bridge over the 1st stream.  It's always fun to explore.  We reconnected to the Connector just before it climbed back to the Boundary.  Danielle wanted to get in 12 miles; Ian planned to run long, perhaps doing an ultra-badass.  I really have no schedule right now, but didn't feel like stopping.  We set off on the Scuffle.  Our pace seemed pretty steady and so did our chatter.

I hated to head back, but had stuff to do at home.  Danielle decided she'd head back with me too.  So where the Ginn crosses the Old Tuttle Rd. we cut across to the Snowmobile Trail, to the Link, and back.  By the time we got to the parking lot, Danielle's Garmin turned 12 miles!  Nice.  We saw Ryan's car and new that he and Sam were somewhere waiting for her.  Pretty good timing, too.

I know from FB that Ian stayed the course, getting in over 32 miles.  Nicer!