Blog Post To Be Named Later

Eh.  Just have to start.  The only minor problem going into Sunday's (Apr 8th) 31 miles was my lack of sleep.  I'd developed a knot in my back (sort of under my shoulder blade) that made my neck hard to move.  It started on Friday.  Every time I'd fall asleep, any movement would make me move.  I knew the running itself would be ok, because it had loosened up pretty quickly during Saturday's little miles.

I was happy with myself to have gotten to the Brad before the Squirrel; she has had to wait for me too many times.  I was happier to see that Jeremy was in the lot.  He said he'd come to support us!!!  It was so much fun to have his energy in our first 10ish miles.  We'd decided on running a chunk of the Big Brads for our first loop.  We used the excuse that we'd need a little extra mileage on this loop to finally explore an enticing place along the dirt road.  The Squirrel and I had noticed it several runs back.  I think we knew we'd be checking it out on one of our runs.  Jeremy needed no encouragement; he was all in.

So we headed up the dirt drive, noticing all the rock pillars, varied birdhouses, and gardens along the way.  On our earlier runs, we'd made all sorts of speculations of what the place could be.  I'm still not sure.  There was a nice horse barn with horses and chickens.  The most curious spot was the most Stonehenge-looking arrangement of rocks.  Of course we walked through the stone gateway...to where?  Inside a little circle of rocks there was an altar of sorts.  Curious.  As much fun as the exploring was, we were going to be out long enough.  Back to the run.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

When we returned to the summit, Mindy and I were headed back to the cars to refuel.  Jeremy was off for hill repeats for the rest of his miles.  S&S's plan for the day was three different loops to get all of the mile.  The next was up the Ski trail, the summit, to lunch break hill, then pick up the Animal loop from there.  We thought that this would be a good way to crank off some miles still we good elevation gain and mostly dirt roads.  Probably 2/3 the way down lunch break, a loud, ferocious bark came from nowhere.  Well, that's how it seemed.  Jeremy had heard us coming and hidden behind a big rock.  Mindy and I rewarded him with huge screams and there may have been some jumping involved.  After we recovered, laughed, threatened Jeremy, we continued on.

We were right about the terrain, but not so much about being able to crank out some miles faster on the AL.  We met up with a semi-friendly, semi-aggressive dog that hounded us for quite a while.  I'd day he cost us at least 15 minutes.   We didn't even stop to see our regulars along the route and the llamas, goat, and horse were all near the fence :(

Heading back into the park, both of us were appreciating up hills more than downs.  Our toes and feet were pretty well complaining about the downs.  Before we reached the cars, I'd already decided I was changing shoes in hopes that just the difference in style would help.  Into the lot, we saw Unstrung heading our way coming from either the switch back or South Ridge.  Perfect timing!  She was going to share our last 10 miles.  Turned out it would be our last 11.  The first two loops were a little short of what I thought they'd be.  Jeremy was back in the lot, too.  He'd just finished his run.  I couldn't resist punching him a little.

It was wonderful to head out with Xar.  It gave new life to our adventure.  We filled her in on our first 20ish, chattered for the first four, but then the conversation dropped off, coming in shorter bursts.  We were all focusing on the trail and remaining vertical.  The Backward Bruiser Minus the O is a wonderful way to finish a long run.  The last two miles may be the kindest the Brad has.  We appreciated him being gentle.

Done.