I have started a personal tradition to go on a long trail run whenever I am in Ohio to visit my parents. Even though I lived within an hour of the Hocking State Forest area trails when I was younger, I never used them for trail running. There are many trail areas that I never even knew existed!

Christmas 2014 was my second long trail run in the Hocking Hills. On my inaugural run a couple of years ago, I ran from Old Man's Cave to Ash Cave and back along the Buckeye Trail that travels through the state park and most of those trails were at least familiar from my younger years. This time, I wanted to explore parts of the Buckeye Trail that were new to me.

The Old Man's Cave parking area on State Route 664 makes a good starting point because of the heated visitor's center that includes working water and restroom facilities year-round. Note that some of the trails in the park are undergoing major maintenance and are currently closed or re-routed.

Based on weather reports I decided to do my run a few days before Christmas rather than trying to run on Christmas Day. It was cold but there was no real rain. I first ran north from the Old Man's Cave parking lot. There are some notes on finding the Buckeye Trail from this location below.

I ran the Buckeye Trail to the Hocking Hills Climbing and Repelling area parking lot which is about 3.5 miles one-way. If you just wanted to see the Climbing area, the parking lot on Big Pine Rd / CR 11 is going to be your best bet.

The Climbing area has some amazing rock formations:







I had left some notes of my running plan with my parents, and even though I wanted to continue northward along the Buckeye Trail at this point, I followed my plan and returned to Old Man's Cave. My plan from here was to run to Ash Cave as I had on my previous visit. This time I ran "up top" on the Gorge Overlook Trail instead of down in the gorge along the creek due to the trail maintenance and closures.

Rose Lake was beautiful to look at.



I suggest enjoying Rose Lake from the dam area and not by running around it on the shoreline trail. The trail is steeply cambered and not much fun.

From Rose Lake I made it to the fire tower:



This time I took a picture at the top:

The Inaugural Gainesville Brewery Run was hosted by First Magnitude Brewing Company on December 14, 2014.

The race course was out-and-back on the Gainesville-Hawthorne trail. All of the event facilities were located at the First Magnitude brewery. The start/finish line was just a stone's throw from the brewery so it was a very short walk from the finish line to claim a free delicious beer and grab some food. Besides the indoor taproom, the brewery has very nice outdoor seating area with trees and picnic tables which was perfect given the weather of race day.

The paved bike path made for a fast course. I was able to stick with Dan Clark until the turnaround point, but he went on to win the race in 17:09. I am happy with 2nd overall and a time of 17:38.

Top finishers received a boot full of beer!



Nice 2nd place award medal to go with the longsleeve t-shirt:



Here is a photo of the top 3 male finishers, all named Dan:

This race report will be short and sweet.

Thanksgiving was 5 short days after my Wild Hare 25k race, so I didn't register for this turkey trot until the day before. The Race Director said that he went from 25 registered runners to over 150 in the week before the event, thus the late registrants didn't get a t-shirt. He said he would mail it to me, which is a nice gesture and uncommon for most races (if they run out of shirts, that's too bad). So far, no t-shirt has arrived for me in the mail, though.

** Update 1/22/2015 ** My longsleeve t-shirt and finisher medal arrived in the mail the other day! Way to go Race Director!



Lake Plufgerville is a really nice venue for a race. The crushed granite trail winds its way around the shore of the lake. The trail surface was nice and flat (unlike some lake trails which have continuous camber / slope down towards the water). Race morning was a bit chilly and breezy, but the sun was shining and overall it was a beautiful morning. It was great that I didn't have to fight Austin traffic in order to run a Turkey Trot.

At the start I went out under control, 3 or 4 of us out near the front. When we crossed the spillway over the dam within the first half mile, one runner made a quick move. I had to decide whether to let him go or go with him. I decided to go with him. It was quite windy that morning so when we turned the corner into the wind I tried to draft behind him. Before making in halfway around the lake I got close enough to hear his breathing which was much harder than mine at the time. When I felt him slow down I pushed on past. Running around the lake there is good visibility to the people ahead and behind. At the sharp turns I looked back to see if anyone else was nearby and it didn't look like it. I was winning the race!

I pressed on, finished the second lap around the lake, and came through the finish line in 36:28, which seemed really fast, and would have been a nice big 10k PR... if the course had been accurate.

My only complaint about the event is that the course was short. Using Google Maps Pedometer, I determined that one lap around the lake was a tiny bit under 3 miles, not the 3.1 needed for a 5k. The actual course was a bit longer than two laps (a little extra at the beginning, a little extra at the end), but it did not make up for the missing distance.

I received an email after the race that next year they plan to make the course measurement accurate. So, that would be a good improvement. I suggested that they don't even need to make the distances longer they just need to call the races what they are... a 3 miler and a 6 miler... which is totally fine for a turkey trot type of event.

Despite the course measurement issue, it feels nice to win a race every once in a while.

The trophies were real wood and quite nice:



Lake Pflugerville made a nice backdrop for eating my post-race double pie (pecan and pumpkin) with whipped cream, hot coffee in my hand:



As I said, this race report was going to be short and sweet... SHORT due to the short course measurement and SWEET due to the double post-race pie. :)

We decided to go to Texas for Thanksgiving this year and while planning the trip I looked for area races. I was happy to find the Tejas Trails Wild Hare 50mi / 50km / 25km / 10km which takes place near Warda, Texas and was only about an hour from where we were going to be staying.

Since Wild Hare was happening one short week after my peak race at the St. Augustine Half Marathon, I decided to run the 25k distance. On this course, that would mean completing two 7.8 mile loops.

The morning of the race was cool but definitely not cold and had plenty of humidity.

I carried one water bottle and planned for this to be enough to get through 25k (15.5 miles) without needing to stop at any aid stations. I consumed no food or fuels during the run. That is how I train so that is how I race. I had been worried about the possibility of sharp rocks and considered wearing a heavier shoe, but it turns out that my New Balance Minimus Trail MT00 shoes did fine.

The Enduro Photo photographers were on the course and took a really great photo of me:


Photo by Enduro Photo.

The race started in a barn and ran along a gravel road for a short bit before turning onto a grassy section and a trip around a pond. This allowed the field to spread out before the tight twisty wooded single track began. A young girl ran ahead of me for the first mile, moving along really well in her Merrells. It was only after the race that I put it together that this had been none other than one of the Welsch sisters that I read about in the NY Times and various places on the Internet such as:

This fall I decided to train for a Half Marathon. I already had four half marathons under my belt but this was the first time I targeted the distance with specific workouts. I had planned to run the Tom Walker Memorial Half Marathon and had figured out a schedule for all of my key workouts. However, the Tom Walker race date started wandering around the calendar and after hearing that the event would be rescheduled a second time, I went looking for another nearby race. The Columbia St. Augustine Half Marathon on Nov. 16 looked like a good option so I re-plotted my key workouts to fit the new schedule. I now had a firm target race date which always helps me to maintain my training focus. My training went well with my only goof being that I misread my own calendar and did a hard workout less than a week before the race. I would have preferred to have 10 days of taper to absorb that last bit of training. Regardless, by Sunday morning race day I felt ready to go.

The morning was clear and beautiful, cool but not cold. I took this photo of Castillo de San Marcos during my warmup, less than an hour before race start.



The race was well-organized with the finish line, registration tent, food, and plenty of port-a-potties all in the Francis Field area. The adjacent parking garage was open and free to race participants. The course is USATF certified, well-marked with cones the entire way, has solid mile markers, plenty of aid stations, and race staff at significant road intersections.

The starting line was a short jog down A1A to the front of the Hilton on the waterfront. This is probably the first race I have attended where people were shy about lining up at the start. The race officials kept calling for the "elite" runners to come to the front and eventually waved enough that people finally approached the starting line. There was no special elite division, they just kept calling the faster runners the elites. After looking at the race results from previous years, I had my goal solidly set on placing in the top 5 overall, so I felt no qualms about lining up at the front.

I got out quick at the start and then settled in to let the rest of the field sort itself out. The leaders quickly achieved separation from the rest of the runners and the top 4 finishers were already far in front by the time we crossed the Bridge of Lions. The runner in blue (Kristopher Shold) went on to win. The runner in orange (Paul Mcrae) passed me very early and finished 35 seconds ahead of me. The tall runner behind me in the white Columbia singlet (David Picciano) caught up to me by the time we hit the first mile marker and at that point we were racing for 3rd place.


Photo by ChessiePhoto

It was easy to smile so early in the race: