(not) Happy Trails

I finally got back on the trails this morning. This was the first trail run since McKay Hollow Madness. I understand now why spring and summer trail running isn't as popular as fall and winter trail running. It was so HOT today! It's 87 now and it was in the 80's for much of the run. Yuck. I had forgotten how much of a difference the heat makes. I may be forced to adjust my Cotton Row goal! I somehow managed to run about 19.5 miles and I was totally spent.

I ran Alms House to the finish of the Mountain Mist 50k. Then, I refilled and ran part of McKay Hollow Madness. I skipped Natural Well and Arrowhead trails and went straight up Death Trail. From there, I took North Plateau to Cold Springs back to Bankhead down to my car at LT parking lot for 19.5 miles total. I thought about doing a rain dance to make it an even 20, but I could find no compelling reason to do so. The car with AC and fresh clothes just looked too inviting.

And the heat was only part of the misery today. Apparently, I was the first on many of the trails this morning because I took down tons of spider webs. I fell twice during the first mile and after 2 miles, I was covered in mud, spider webs, and worms. Yep, worms. There was a ton of vegetation growing near the trails, so I may have some poison ivy on my legs, too. Then, later in the run when I had broken a good sweat, I had a combat box of insects orbiting my head. When I looked at my shadow, my head looked like Saturn because of the ring of insects around it. I love trail running, but I didn't really enjoy today. I may be finished with trail running until the fall. Unless, of course, I can find some friends to share the misery with me.

I struggled to get out the door again this morning. Today, it was mostly because my plan changed about 5 or 6 times before this morning. I had 2 5k's that I considered. I thought about running CMM on a whim (the full, not the half). I even had a hotel booked, but the show stopper was the $130 late entry fee. That totally discouraged me from running that race. My pain threshold was $100. I would have run it for $100. Then, I had other runs with friends that didn't pan out. So, I wasn't really excited about a long trail run by myself. But, I knew that I needed a good long run because I missed about 20 miles last weekend with a short (5k) race and illness on Sunday. So, I gutted it out anyway. I hope it will pay off in my conditioning.