Hello, this is Dale. I have a question for you, but first, I see you live in NC; Duke or UNC?
Ha, I looked at my phone in disbelief, Drew and I were just finishing up lunch and he looked at my caller id and said, “oh you should probably answer that Rachel.”
On June 11, about 1 month from the start of Hardrock 100, I finally got in! It’s a good thing I so enjoy training and had planned on training like I was running anyway. May 19 was my 43rd birthday, so as a present to myself I figured out how to get away to Asheville to have some real time training in a mountain area. Where I live, the tallest “mountain” is 800 ft, and we live at 400 ft, so it’s only a 400 foot climb. Off we went to Black Mountain, where my sister recently bought her first house. Mia Jackson and I would spend a month living and training up and downhill.
The first week friends of mine were in town on their vacation, so I had someone to run with to start me off. I have a favorite loop that starts at Curtis Creek campground and climbs up 3,400 ft in about 4 miles, and then descends back down over 10 miles. The first week this felt really hard. The long downhill is just steep enough and runnable enough that you want to run it fast, the final 10k we did at a 6:41 pace and I was probably suffering more than I should. I did this loop every Tuesday for 3 weeks and by the last week it was feeling pretty comfortable.
The first week of may 22-28 I ran 74 miles/15 hours/11,400 ft (for reference my usual elevation at home is 3,000-4,000 ft a week)
Week two was 75 miles/19 hours/16,434 ft of climbing
Week three was 71 miles/17 hours/15,000 ft of climbing
Week 4 was 80 miles/20 hours/16,000 ft of climbing
The dogs and I had a great time. Mia finally came out of her shell and thrived on the trails. We started to get into a pattern where I either ran them in the morning for my recovery runs or took them for a hike after work at 4pm, she’s still trying to climb into the car every day at 4pm for a mountain hike. Mia and I both desperately miss the trail running and the cooler temps in WNC.
Anyway, there are about 2.5 weeks left until I line up in Silverton! The snow is still pretty deep, and I can’t wait!
Trail Wisp(erings) 