I’m just getting around to posting some pictures from an awesome afternoon that we had at the quarry. Both Eriks (Ieva’s brother) and Kathleen (Jim’s special lady) were in town. Perfect weather, good routes, good food afterwards. Jim also got us to go do some of the routes next to the water, below the Flake. The rock is really high quality there! Very compact. This picture is of Jim on a new line. Click on it to go to the gallery.
Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the satellite photos for the Mohican 100 compared to Rothrock State Forest:
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| Mohican 100 course | Rothrock State Forest |
They're both at the same scale. It looks like the mountains aren't going to be nearly as big. I know that this thing's in Ohio, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. There's 11,000 feet of elevation gain over the whole thing, which is about 69% as hilly as the R3 trail in Rothrock.
I also took a look at the handful of pictures that they have on the Mohican 100 website, and none of the trails look very rough or very steep compared to Rothrock, either.
Who knows, maybe the terrain will turn out to be easier than what I've been training on.
If it sounds like I'm obsessing a little at this point, it's because I'm obsessing a lot.
The Mohican 100 is on June 18th and 19th. I'm already committed, and I've even reserved the hotel rooms. The training has been going pretty well. The long runs are still hard (I don't think they'll ever get easy), but my times are pretty good, and I usually get through them OK. I guess things are going about as well as they can be. No injuries.
The usual week revolves around the long run on Saturday — I'll bike to Rothrock, then do a 30-40 mile run, then bike home. Sometimes they go great. Sometimes they go shitty. The rest of the week invoves maybe a couple other runs, but mainly biking to just get cardio time in without adding any more impact.
Today's run was interesting. Lots of rain, pretty cold. I didn't take the camera, since I knew I'd be soaked most of the time. This week is a little bit of a break, since I've been feeling a little rough around the edges. I had Ieva pick me up a few miles early since I was starting to get blisters from running in wet socks the whole time. I still got 27 miles in, though.
The weather's been incredible around here for the past month, though. Ieva and I have been trying to get out as much as possible to enjoy it. We've gotten out climbing quite a bit, which is really nice. It's starting to feel familiar again! I'll post some pictures from the climbing in a little bit. For now, here are some of the better pictures from the last month of running.
Ieva got us out to the Bellefonte quarry today after work, ending a long stretch of non-climbing. Neither of us had tied into a rope since the end of the road trip in November.
Man, it was a perfect evening, and the climbing actually felt good for both of us. Ieva's super motivated this season! Sheesh. We warmed up on the right side of the Beginner Wall, and then Ieva wanted to get on one of the routes on the French Wall. Someone added some new graffiti to the base, but it didn't affect any of the key holds (shhhh, don't tell them, or they'll come back). Neither of us led it clean, but that route felt good too.
I'm amazed we were able to leave work at 5, dig out a mass of climbing gear that hadn't been touched in a few months, and still fit in 3 routes well before dark.
Earlier today Ieva was checking out airfare on priceline. I guess she found two tickets to Virgin Gorda for $83 each round trip. They would have left tomorrow. We couldn't go, since she absolutely can't miss Amy's baby shower, but it's good to know that that sort of stuff is floating around. How cool would it be to come home from work to find out that you're going to Virgin Gorda tomorrow?! If you haven't seen them yet, you have to check out Bowers's pictures from his trip to Virgin Gorda with Kathleen. Oh man, that place looks incredible. I never would have thought of going there if he hadn't told us about it. He sure can pick the locations…
Jim, Michael, and Sharmishtha came over to finish off the first section of the home wall that we started a couple weeks ago. Michael and I actually found a matress while we were out getting beer. It only blew off the top of his car once.
Same as last time, there's a lot of images, since the camera was set to go off once every few minutes. Just select the "slideshow" option in the upper right of the gallery screen, and set the delay to 1 or 2 seconds for the time-lapse effect.
The strange glamour picture that shows up partway through is something that we found when we tore down the enclosure around the water meter to make more room. The thing's truly odd. I might save it for Klophaus. I know he'd love it.
The past few days have finally started to feel more like Spring, which is really good, since I need to get off my ass and start running a lot more if I want to do well in the Mohican 100 in June… At least the runs are starting to feel really good. Bike to Rothrock, do a run, bike home. They're starting to feel pretty easy, so it's time to bump up the mileage.
The trails in Rothrock are finally starting to thaw out a little. Lots of ice still, some skating rinks, and some mud, but they're getting to be pretty good. First day this season wearing shorts, and not neoprene!
I'm loving having a small camera to take along on the runs this season. It's a nice distraction while you're out there. You almost always see something really cool along the way. The highlight today was seeing four hawks within the space of a mile, including one that flew really close (no pictures, though).
Anyway, here are the pictures from today, which came out pretty well. Now on to setting up the slackline in the backyard!
Tim White invited everyone over to his house in honor of John's graduation from PSU (which actually happened quite a while ago, but nobody minds). The centerpiece for the evening was to be "the bonfire that could be seen from space." I guess Tim had been saving up brush and housing debris for quite a while. Add a little bit of gasoline and some fine beers, and you have yourself quite an evening. Here are the pictures that Tim and I took. Congratulations, John!
The other night, Bowers, Michael, Sharmishtha, Eriks, Sam, and Kate all came over to help start putting up our home climbing wall in our basement. Despite too many discussions, too few working power tools, and too many libations, we did actually get some stuff done.
I just set up a camera in the back corner and set it to take pictures every 5 minutes. So you can kind of get the "time lapse" effect if you click on the slideshow link (upper right) on the page with the pictures, and set the delay to one or two seconds.
Notes:
We just took a much-needed four-day weekend to Jay Peak, VT with our friends Justin, Jenny, Nate, Brandon, and Beth. That week Vermont had gotten 3 feet of snow, so we were hoping to get some pretty good conditions. Here are the pictures from the trip.
We got to go climbing from August to November this year. The big destinations were City of Rocks, ID; Tuolumne Meadows & Yosemite Valley, CA; and Joshua Tree, CA. Here are the highlights.