Decent Week

Last Week

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a lot of days off for a minor (yet cringe worthy) medical procedure. I'll let you use your imagination here. Upon trying to "saddle up" again (Pun Absolutely intended) I took a trip out to Palmerton, PA for my Southernmost run on the Appalachian Trail. I did a 12.2 mile double loop, on Blue Mountain from route 248. Some was Northbound from here and some was Southbound. The route included what must be the slowest measured mile in PA. This section was somewhat technical, link to the Strava page and some photos are below:

Palmerton

Really Sweet View here, but craggy.

Bypassed the Devil's Pulpit on Blue Mountain 

58.8 Miles This Week

Rod Farva, sarcastically said it best "Watch out for this guy."  Really I had a great week mileage and recovery wise. Midweek, I tried to hang with some hard 5:45-6 minute pickup speed work (on pavement), and the weekend yielded some solid trail mileage. Saturday consisted of a local loop near the Jersey Shore (I didn't run into "Snookie" or "J-WOW"..sorry if that is disappointing). Wells Mills County Park in Forked River, NJ was a nice spot to try to move fast on some flat trail. Overall this parks outer loop AKA Penn's Hill Trail, is 8 1/2 miles and has a lot of short steep climbs and slippery wooden footbridges to fall off of. I managed to grab a course record there by about 5 minutes. This won't stand for very long as I really think it could be dropped below an hour. Link below:

Wells Mills Park

Following a fast effort, today I sought some elevation. I really didn't find it as my run encompassed more than 16 miles and a measly 1,300' of elevation gain. I ran from Wind Gap, PA to Fox Gap, PA on the Appalachian Trail. Short of one very hard climb in the first half mile the rest was pretty flat. My pace was super slow, but for good reason...see below!

AT Wind to Fox Gap& Back

"Wolf Rocks" offers a bypass since it is very slippery especially in the rainstorm today, however

I heard banjos and gunshots that sounded pretty close to the bypass loop so I opted for slipping and falling off of a mountain over being turned into a handsome rug or skin suit.

"It's runnable"....We have all said it, but if you like your ankles and teeth you may want to take it easy.

Obligatory....

"Just 910 more miles to Katahdin"

Since this 16.7 miles offered about 1.5 miles of unobstructed running, I am satisfied with a 3:05 Gap to Gap to Gap run today.

Onward and Upward

In other news I will be back in New England where the mountains are taller in about three weeks. Happy Trails!