26.2 Quest

Two Round Trips Through Downtown Gatlinburg

We are in Gatlinburg with family for a couple days. We ran almost 6 miles Sunday morning before leaving to come here and then took Monday off (my first day off after 9 days in a row) I threatened to take my girls for some hill repeats since we are half way up a mountain.

I decided, mainly for my personal reasons, not to make them do the hill repeats. I first took Payton and we drove down near to downtown Gatlinburg. We ran to the last light at the end of the strip and then turned around and ran back to the van. From where we parked it turned out to be almost 3 miles. We did a small out and back to make it 3 miles.

I did a quick round trip (drive) back to the cabin to drop Payton off and to pick up Ashlee. We went back to the same parking lot but this time we ran 1 mile out and then back to the van for a total of 2 miles. Ashlee is still having some issues with her thigh so we took it short and easy. This run was better than most of her last runs as far as her thigh is concerned.

The interesting thing about downtown Gatlinburg is that even though it is the flattest place around it is still either going up or going down the entire time. The last 1/4 mile back to the van was a pretty steep climb, but still better than the ones around the cabin.

Running through downtown is worse than running the Peachtree Road Race. We were out early and that was the only reason it was even doable. We almost took out a few old people who took a b-line to a shop right in front of us, but we got lucky and avoided the collision.

We are headed home this afternoon so we will not be able to get those hill repeats in - DARN!

I want to take an opportunity to thank Thad for featuring me as the Runner of the Week this past week on his Runner Dude Blog. Go over and take a look.

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow blog - twitter - fanpage - call

A Tough Run With My Daughters

A hot 3.8 miles is just about the only way I know how to put it. The run kinda sucked to put it plainly. It was in the middle of the day in some really hot sun, right after mowing the lawn. It really was harder than a 4 miler at that pace should be, but I think the circumstances around it made it that way.

We ran at Alexander park, a park just a couple miles away from home, and the first 1.4 mile circle was with both my daughters. Payton ran a bit in front of us and Ashlee and I took it a little slow trying to nurse her injured thigh. After one time around she was starting to hurt so I told her to stretch and then walk another time around while Payton and I ran two more.

After one more time around Payton and I really were all done with this run. It was wearing on us and just seemed quite hard. We slowed it down a little bit for the third mile..... or so we thought. We must have only slowed it down for a few steps because that last mile was at the same pace as the third mile.

At about 3.5 miles we made a deal. If we caught up with Ashlee we would walk the rest of the way in, if not we would run the rest. We caught up with her at 3.8 miles, just .3 miles before the end of the last loop..... so we walked. :)

I sure hope the 6 miler Payton and I have planned for early in the morning goes better, but I am not so sure since I am up so late tonight.

Have you ever had one of those runs that just seem harder than the rest? Harder than it really should?

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow blog - twitter - fanpage - call

Our Trail Run - Podcasted

You will recall that I went for my first trail run this past Monday morning. It was not only a trail run but was also a Tweetup with a few twitter friends. One of the twitter runners that went was Ron aka:@losttrailrunner. You may know Ron from the podcast called Lost Trail Runner.

Ron has been running since before many of today's runners were born, as he likes to put it, and has been podcasting for a while since he is up to episode 53 as of today. If you haven't stopped by and given him a listen I recommend that you do.

The last two podcasts are of special importance to me. The first one, episode 52, was recorded during our trail run on Monday morning, while in the second one, episode 53, Ron talks about his possible broken toe (from Monday's run) while he is giving it a test run. Why is this second one important to me you ask? Why because my blog gets a mention and it makes me feel all special and everything.

S.W.A.T. Trot - Take 3

As I sit here filling out the registration form for the upcoming S.W.A.T. Trot 5k a lot of thoughts go through my mind. The S.W.A.T. Trot is an evening run and it is run just outside of Brookwood High School. This year it is on June 12th and I am once again hoping for a 5k PR.

My mind first goes back to 2007 when I ran my first 5k, the Saratoga 5k Fun Run. There is a long story to get to that point in my journey and the best thing to do if you have some time is to go read about where I started.

I was not able to run the S.W.A.T. Trot that year because of a schedule conflict, so my first one was in 2008. I had run the 2nd annual Saratoga 5k Fun Run and set a new PR of 23:23. The Saratoga race is a very difficult hilly course and so I was really excited to run the S.W.A.T. Trot just over a month later and set another PR. I had hopes of getting down near 21:00 and had a very good shot at it.