April 19th: Today, we had a chance to make some new friends who newly experienced the great Cincinnati Children’s Cerebral Palsy Program. Today, Jason and his brother Ryan headed to Winton Woods with Pete to join the Walk With Knox. Knox is a very cute, energetic, and wonderfully enthusiastic young boy who was very recently diagnosed with CP. His parents and family were very appreciative of the attentive doctors and staff they met, so they quickly organized a fundraiser to help support this program that has also been so helpful to our family.

Parents Kelly and Brett, along with their large and extended families, put on the Walk With Knox fundraiser for the CP Program at a local park, which was a 5K walk for everyone who wanted to participate. We got a chance to witness firsthand some of Knox’s great energy at the playground, where he showed everyone how to maneuver all the equipment–even showing Pete how to climb up the slide! His attitude was cheerfully infectious, even though the walk itself was pretty rainy.

The walk started off with a release of many green and white balloons into the sky. Kelly and Brett spent lots of time talking with Jason and sharing their experiences with us. Their whole family was very welcoming, and we enjoyed lots of food before and after the event.

Even though this was set up without a lot of organization, it raised more than $5,000 for the Program! It was really heartwarming to see such an outpouring of gratitude for a great cause. Thanks for including us, Knox!

Many more pictures can be found here.

Pete’s been busy building up his fitness for Superior 100. In the next few days, we will post a few recent workout highlights.

April 11th: Today’s workout was again at Mt Airy Forest, for about 14 miles in 2 hours and 40 minutes. This was really fun today, for a couple of reasons:

First, it was the first run where springtime was really evident, as it started breaking through the gray and brown grip of late winter. The skies were intensely blue, the temperatures were still cool and with low humidity, and I felt great coming off of a low mileage week. It was still awfully muddy in places, but the promise of warmth made it easy to splash through the puddles. Mt Airy is always tough, but its steep and sometimes rocky challenges always keep my mind sharp and refreshed. My battle with the massive hill that is the Stone Steps continued, and I made it closer to the top before having to stop momentarily for a breather–maybe next time I will conquer!

Second, while running towards the end in the Arboretum side of the park, I came across a truly inspiring sight–an entire valley of buttercups just emerging from their winter hibernation. It went on as far as the eye could see, tiny and fragile yellow flowers wrapped in a verdant, undulating green carpet. For some reason, it reminded me of the lush green plains of Ireland. So I doth name thee Ohireland.

And best of all, I got to invent a new sport! I’m worried about the rocky and technical terrain for both Laurel Highlands and especially the Superior 100. There are rocks and roots in place on the Ohio trails, especially at Mt. Airy, but it’s not the same as I expect to encounter in my target races. Nor is it similar to my old training grounds in Pennsylvania, a state that is basically a big rock pile covered by a thin veneer of soil.

So lately I started eying some of the creek beds close to our house. I noticed that many of these are broad and flat with not much water in them. They also often have big and flat stones. I tried walking a few of them nearby our house to see if they were stable and easy to maneuver in, and they seemed to be so perfect that they were almost like walking paths.

Today, I tried out my idea. Where one of the trails dipped into a ravine with an inviting creek, I turned into the creek and tried to run down the creek bed. To my joy, it was pretty easy to do so! There was almost always an obvious place to step, either on a flat rock in the creek bed or a flat spot alongside the creek. The rocks were stable and not slippery at all. Only occasionally was there a spot where I had to stop or slow down to find my way, usually either a pile of debris or a log to go over or under. With a bit of practice, I could start to look ahead and figure out a path to take without stopping. This was also great lower leg proprioception (balance) training and kept my mental focus sharpened. After a bit of learning, it became a real joy, both for the challenge and for bringing me even closer to nature’s wonders.

Here is a video of my first attempt. This is in a place where it wasn’t so easy to run, so it’s not so representative of the whole outing. I did this for about half a mile and can’t wait to try again! Not sure what to call this new sport, “Creek Running” seems a bit lame. Any ideas?

March 31st: On our way back from Georgia, we decided to stop in Kentucky and check out Red River Gorge, a rugged park and natural area east of Lexington we had heard much about since our move to Cincinnati. This turned out to be an awesome side trip and a special adventure for Jason and the whole family.

The gorge is indeed very rugged, with steep mountains everywhere that have been slowly eroded into imposing cliff faces. Many of these have further eroded into “arches”, where the sandstone below a hard granite capstone rock is worn away to cause underlying indentations. There are many wicked hiking trails, and this is awesome trail running country, as the Rugged Red Half Marathon held here in mid-September attests to (4000 feet of climb in only 13 miles!).

However, hiking up to the signature Natural Bridge, the highlight of the park and a true natural arch that has eroded all the way through, was not in the cards for us. While there were several trails to view the arch, none of these were wheelchair accessible for Jason. We contemplated our strategy during lunch at Miguel’s Pizza and climbing shop, which is a can’t-be-missed restaurant with super awesome pizza and rice bowls. Finally, we decided to see if we could take the “tram” to the top. This turned out to be nothing more than a short and scarily steep chairlift straight up the side of the cliff and onto the top of the arch. However, the lift operators were incredibly friendly and helpful, and they offered to load Jason’s stroller onto a chair and take it off for us at the top. Jason got to sit with Mom and loved the ride, while the boys rode on ahead to set everything up at the top.

At the top, it was a real struggle getting Jason wheeled across a short but VERY bumpy trail to the top of the arch. But it was totally worth it, as you can see from the scenery in one of brother Ryan’s famous “trip clip” video travelogues at the summit. The bridge is 78 feet across and 65 feet high, but it seems much higher from the top. A very happy day!

Pete’s been busy building up his fitness for Superior 100. In the next few days, we will post a few recent workout highlights.

April 4th: This weekend, I again faced a peak running weekend. I was hoping to ramp up to a 5 hour run on trails on Saturday and another 2 1/2 again on Sunday. Back I trudged early in the morning to my emerging nemesis, East Fork State Park, which is the only place relatively close that has enough trails to keep things from not being overly repetitive. The weather was excellent, the trails were still swampy in only a few locations, and I felt great this Saturday. I came out early to run the first few miles in the dark, so I could get a bit of nighttime practice in for the Laurel Highlands warmup race that is coming up all to fast (June 13th, and a scary 70 miles!). I felt strong throughout, and before I knew it, I’d knocked off an estimated 25 miles or so–woohoo! Even better, the run Sunday also went great, mainly due to the nice support I routinely get from my local running buddies.

Just two more really tough weekends before Laurel Highlands, and I am very glad. It’s really amazing to me that I’ve gotten this far in my training, just by adding 20 or 30 minutes to each long run. The last few miles are typically a real struggle, but then my body is ready to go that much farther the next time. Hopefully, this keeps working, because I’m going to need it to!

April 9th: On the road again to Bethesda, Maryland. I’m here frequently and always run on the local bike path. This morning, I again felt great and found myself getting a pretty speedy 4 miles in. Glad to know I still have a bit of quickness in me.

Pete’s been busy building up his fitness for Superior 100. In the next few days, we will post a few recent workout highlights.

March 28th: Straight from Utah to Georgia–we got a chance to celebrate one of Lori’s family member’s birthdays this weekend in south central Georgia. This was really fun, a chance to hang out with the family at a backwoods cabin next to the Flint River, complete with canoeing, cornhole, and a campfire for the kids (and, ahem, adults too).

This was also a great chance to try my luck at the Georgia trails. My brother-in-law Ben has become a fine marathon runner in the past few years, and now he is interested in trail running. He didn’t need much convincing to head over with to Pine Mountain State Park early one morning to see what we could do. Pine Mountain is famous for a number of things–it is next door to the “Little White House” where Franklin D. Roosevelt soothed his polio-wracked body in local warm springs during his presidency. It’s also the home to Callaway Gardens, a well known golf and nature resort.

While that’s all great, what I was interested in today was the park’s terrific Pine Mountain Trail, which is 23 miles of bliss that is the home of the renowned Pine Mountain Trail Run, hosted by the incomparable Georgia Ultra and Trail Society (GUTS). I’d run a few miles of this trail before and remembered it as gorgeous and challenging, so we set out to explore.

Ben and I found the perfect trail–hilly and meandering with a few climbs to keep the heart rate up, but nothing crazy. We encountered stretches of silent pine forest with a bed of pine needles on the trail that felt like running on soft pillows. This was broken up by a few ravines, where we descended into darkly forested creeks, with waterfalls and lush undergrowth everywhere. These had a mysterious and primeval feel to them. On occasion, we also ran into drier and rockier sections that were technical enough to keep us scanning the ground for potential trip hazards.

This was Ben’s longest trail run ever–we ended up going 10 pretty fast miles–but he not only did admirably with the difficult terrain, he was kicking my butt by the end. Maybe, just maybe, I’ve convinced him to help pace my at Superior this fall. That would be amazing! Thanks for the company, buddy!

Pete’s been busy building up his fitness for Superior 100. In the next few days, we will post a few recent workout highlights.

March 26th: March and April are usually work travel season for me, which means I get the lucky chance to run all over the country! This week, I was in Salt Lake City, the first time I’ve really ever spent any time in the city. This is an amazing place, with expansive desert on one side, a cool and open urban setting with a city that feels like it was built yesterday, and the majesty of the Wasatch Range towering over everything just to the East. My schedule only allowed for an early morning run, so on Thursday, I planned out a four mile out-and-back run heading straight for the mountains–and fearing that I would get to them before I turned around (they looked pretty imposing). I imagined an incredible morning with the sun rising over the mountains, with stunningly blue and clear skies.
What I got was something a bit different.

Apparently, dawn comes a bit later to Salt Lake than Cincinnati. Fortunately, my route got me just to the foothills before I had to turn around. I think that Utah is the 27th state I’ve now run in–I am most fortunate to be able to travel to so many great places.

March 21st: My son Ryan is taking weekend nature classes at the fantastic Cincinnati Nature Center, which we recently joined. This has given me a great chance to explore their many miles of woodland and prairie trails while he’s busy finding out about the wonders of the Ohio woods. The trails here are not technical and are mostly gentle, but there are a couple of seriously challenging ridge climbs that keep things interesting, including the 195 (!) stairs to the top of one ridge.

This is along the “red trail”, which is appropriately named as it quickly makes you red line. Actually, this one is not so bad because the stairs are even. But another, more overgrown climb further along the same ridge is almost as bad as the Stone Steps. This one seems to go on forever.

Luckily, the trails at the top are pretty level and gave me a nice breather. This was a superb run, but still with some swampy sections from recent rains. It gave me some real confidence, as my last outing here was a very tough run that I had to wrap up by walking the last half hour. And the bluebells were out in force, first real signs of spring!

Pete’s been busy building up his fitness for Superior 100. In the next few days, we will post a few recent workout highlights.

March 15th: Spent 2 muddy hours at Mt Airy Forest on Saturday. Mt Airy is a real gem, about 2000 acres of unspoiled forest on a rugged ridgetop that is only a few miles from downtown Cincinnati. It was a spectacular early morning in the park.

Even in full sunlight, the leaf-devoid forest had a pristine and primeval glow to it.

The park is also the most convenient local place to get in some elevation and technical training, with plenty of rocks and roots scattered on its course. While the main loop is relatively flat as it winds around several long ridges across the Mountain, any time you get off  the main trail means a big, and often steep, climb or descent. The big challenge is the Stone Steps, which is a 300 foot climb practically straight up. The last half is a series of about 200 stairs carved out of local granite that are twisted, overgrown, warped, and otherwise mutilated.

This was my first time attempting these. It is an awesome combination of quad burning, general muscle fatigue, and cardiovascular stress that tends to leave you in a collapsed state. While this is great for Superior, I’m not yet in very good hill shape, as had to walk a bit about halfway up. That sets up a good goal for the upcoming runs here!

To make matters more difficult, today the trails were very sloppy due to the spring rainy season.

This makes the uphills much tougher from poor traction, and the downhills always an adventure. No signs of spring yet, but it won’t be long now!

Here’s what I looked like by the end.