Early tomorrow morning, Debbie and I, head to the great smokey mountains for our vacation. We can't wait to get there. The excitement of driving thru Maryville and looking to the left to see the mountains in background is a great relaxing feeling. We are driving straight thru this year because we only have 7 days this year (Debbie has to work).
We will do daily day hikes of 8-16 miles with day packs. Bears, it appears, are very active this year. We will see. Not sure what mountains we'll climb but for sure Mt. Le Conte again.
After, the mountains I'm going back packing with my friend Tom for 6-7 days on the AT starting in Georgia, maybe going 120+ miles. The next 2 weeks will be great adventure.
This year, maybe I'll even run a little in the mountains.
Last Saturday I ran Clinton Lake 10 mile trail in 1:58:20 my first time under 2 hours since 2-28-2005!! I'm getting in shape, good aerobic shape. My foot is okay, a litle sore when I go faster but as long as I skip the intervals I'm okay. I have been more sore on the in-step, though, and my ankle feels stiff.
I'll call the "Red Ball Jet" syrdrome. Remember those shoes in the sixies?? I knew if I just come have those shoes I could run FAST!! That's the people who wore them said and the TV showed. So I begged my mamma for some "red ball jets" Finally I got them, and I just know I was running faster, I just knew it. Of course, I was not.
In the 1970's frank shorter was the world's top marathon runner, olypmic champ. He wore Tiger jayhawks. I just had to have those shoes. If I did I just knew I could meet my goal of sub 3 hour marathon. I got the shoes and they were light super light, small heel lift, comfortable and could do my long runs of 20 miles at 8 min pace. I just knew I could go from 3:23 to sub 3 with these shoes, if Frank Shorter all 132 lbs could go 2:10, I could go sub 3 at 152 lbs. In the end I could only go 3:07.
Killian Journet is the latest great ultra runner, from Spain, young, light weight, fast, runs light and easy fast uphills and down mountains. his video's on salomon running channel are some of the best I've seen. So, surely its his shoes, the Solomon cx crossmax, a cushion shoes, looks great, supportive on rocks, just what I need to protect my feet and go FAST!! Wait, my feet do not need support and I like light weight shoes...no, no , no...I need those shoes to protect my feet, look at killian run!! After my first run my feet, hip, ankle hurt in strange places, my in-step was sore, a wierd sore....yes,I was once again victimized by the "red ball jet" syrdrome.
