Road Trip: ATL

Sunday: 15.5-16 miles @Kennesaw Mtn. National Battlefield Park
Saturday PM: 8-8.5 miles @Chattahoochee River trails
Saturday AM: 8 miles w/West Stride training group

Twas an epic road trip weekend for Jordan and myself. The destination: Atlanta. The objective: Craft and Karhu wear test run at West Stride. The payoff: Hanging out with friends and knocking out some great runs.

It started Friday afternoon, when Jordan and I loaded up Felix the "sport wagon" and set off in the southbound direction on I-85. We didn't have anything on the agenda for Friday but needed to be up bright and early for a Craft and Karhu wear test run at West Stride on Saturday morning. After a brief stop in Greenville we arrived in Atlanta just in time to grab some dinner and call it an early night.

Saturday morning dawned crisp and cold--quite the relief, as I'd only brought Zero and Zero Extreme base layers for wear testing and it was 80 degrees up until Friday! The gang at West Stride was expecting 50-75 people for the run, which meant that Jordan and I pulled out all the stops by setting up a tent, table, flag and samples in the parking lot. There was a flurry of activity when the wear test samples were brought out, and within minutes I'd handed out every piece in the box. The run through the affluent surrounding neighborhoods was a lot of fun and I heard tons of positive feedback about the Craft base layers--a few people even asked to buy the shirts that were on their backs! Always a good sign when people are that excited about the product.

In the early afternoon Jordan and I paid a visit to Fleet Feet John's Creek, our partner for 13.1 Atlanta, before driving back to midtown to meet my friend Jennie for a photography session. In addition to working at West Stride, training for the next Olympic Trials and earning a massage therapy license, Jennie is also an accomplished photographer (check out her site here). Apparently she is helping shoot for an Atlanta running calendar and was in need of some super hot girls (myself, obviously, and her friend Kyla) to run for some photos. I don't know whether or not we fit the bill, but we did get honked at eight different times by men who appeared to be of all ages and ethnic persuasions, so I consider that a victory any day of the week.


A less technical section of the Chattahoochee River trails

Next on tap after my supermodel shoot was a trail run with JSK at the Chattahoochee River. Jordan has been here with me once before but we barely made it up into the technical trails, so today was a special treat. The weather could not have been better for a run, and the sound of autumn leaves crunching under our feet supplied the perfect soundtrack for our afternoon miles. Having not been on trails for a while I found myself quite timid on some of the more technical sections, which meant that every few minutes Jordan would gap me by about 50 meters before feeling guilty and stopping to wait. This sequence was repeated at least half a dozen times before he grew exasperated with the tortoise and left me to fend for myself. By the time we made it back to the parking lot the sun was dipping below the horizon and I was thoroughly exhausted--and, of course, hungry. We hadn't eaten a proper meal all day and I was ready to tear something up. Fortunately we'd made plans to rendezvous with Jennie and her husband Leo for a fun night out at Antico, an authentic local pizza place. The menu is stark and simple and they import all their ingredients from Italy, which means they close up shop each night when they run out of provisions. The coolest part is they make the food while you watch (the limited selection of table seating is located literally in the middle of their kitchen). Oh, and it's BYOB and BYOD (dessert). How can you not love that? And, just in case there was any doubt, let me confirm that the pizza was amazing and the atmosphere was loud and boisterous, just like I imagine a real Italian pizzeria would be. We left feeling full and tired and ready to crash early.


A map of our Sunday run--we went from the Visitor Center
to Kolb Farm and back

Sunday morning saw us returning once more to West Stride for a staff meeting/clinic, which wrapped up around 10:30. From there it was time to conquer the mountain--Kennesaw Mountain, that is, a spot just north of Atlanta with miles and miles of glorious wooded trails. I'd only planned on putting in 12 or so miles, but about 30 minutes in Coach Jordan decided I must be feeling peppy (not sure what part of my labored breathing and heavy footfalls offered that indication) and encouraged me to keep going. Since he wasn't dropping me every two minutes like yesterday I decided to take him up on it and continue to the eight-mile mark at Kolb Farm. The trails were hopping with runners, walkers, horseback riders and even the occasional costume (several times we passed a guy wearing a full body skeleton suit who unbeknownst to me was actually my friend Kate's husband). My quads and hammies were throbbing at the turnaround point, already fatigued from an hour of undulating trails, but from there I had no alternative but to return from whence I came. The final 20 minutes were incredibly tough--I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I don't think I've run two hours more than a time or two in the past year--but I still managed to enjoy the serene beauty of the trails and the gorgeous autumn weather. Nature could not have delivered a better morning, and despite my aching body I had a blast exploring new terrain with Jordan. What a perfect end to our weekend road trip.


Beautiful Kennesaw Mtn. trails

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Starting the Month Off Right

AM: 21 min. w/u (~3 miles)
Target: 3x3 mile @6:40 w/4:00 rest
Actual: 19:12 (6:22, 6:24, 6:26); 19:18 (6:24, 6:27, 6:27); 19:02 (6:15, 6:26, 6:20)
19 min. c/d (2.5 miles)
Total: 15 miles
PM: 43 mins.
5+ miles

As I just told Jilane, if the weather at MCM is anything like today we should have an awesome run. In contrast to yesterday's hot and humid conditions (sorry, Oz), today was cool, crisp and dry, with a light breeze. Absolutely beautiful. I'm confident that the weather, combined with my relative "off" day yesterday, facilitated what I consider to be one of my best workouts of this entire training cycle.

From the first mile I could tell things were going to go well. Initially I was concerned that starting off at such an ambitious pace would result in disaster by the end, but after about a mile and a half of fighting it I decided to just chill out and allow things to play out as they may. The last interval was definitely tough (especially considering I led off the first mile with a 3:05 800--not sure what happened there) but I felt strong and in control throughout. My hamstring tightened up a bit, but I deliberately took a minute or two of the "rest" between intervals to stretch, and that seemed to help.

Believe it or not, hammering the workout itself was actually not the highlight of this run. I had just begun the cool down and was still running through the park, basically zoned out, when I passed a pair of girls and heard one of them yell my name. Turns out it was Katherine, one of my closest friends from when I lived here before but hadn't seen since moving back. We stopped and spent a few minutes catching up and made plans to hang out as soon as I get back from California. It was absolutely wonderful to run into her (literally) and I can't wait to see her again. Made my day!


Kat and me back in the day.

In the evening, my sales rep and I did a group run with a few of the employees from the Big Peach in Kennesaw. This was only my second time to run in the trails there, and while they were a bit rocky and root-y in parts, overall the run was quite enjoyable. My legs loosened up after the first ten minutes and I felt decent the rest of the time. Overall I'd say this is a solid day to put in the books.

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Near Death Experience

129 mins.
~16.5-17 miles

Okay, I'm just going to put this out there up front: this was the hardest run I've done in this training cycle. Period. I'm sure it's a combination of finishing off my highest mileage week yet, plus having done two relatively hard and lengthy workouts, plus not being able to start the run until mid-day. For whatever reasons, I have honestly never been more relieved to finish a run than I was at the end of this effort.

Also, today comprised a series of firsts for me. It was my first run at Kennesaw Mountain (which, you may recall, was the site of my painful hike-a-thon a few months ago). Since I had to give a tech clinic at a store in Kennesaw this morning, it seemed only logical to drive a few miles to the mountain and do my run there. Change of scenery, new trails, and I was able to hook up with Ezra, a guy I recently met who works at the Big Peach in Kennesaw (and was also looking for a long run today). This was also my first run to experiment with a gel of some sort (apple cinnamon Clif Shot, to be exact), which I took at approximately nine miles. The main point of "practicing" with this was to see how it affected my stomach, and surprisingly everything was kosher. In fact, that brings me to another long run "first" for today, which is that I didn't have to stop for the bathroom. Now that might not sound like a big deal, but anyone who knows me understands that I structure my runs around the availability of restroom facilities. That's just how I roll. But for whatever reason, today the bathroom was not needed, which is auspicious for MCM. Somehow I don't think I'm going to have many spare minutes to play with on race day, and it would be tragic to miss my goal due to an unexpected detour. Finally, this was also my first long run that finished in the heat of the day. While certainly not ideal, I didn't have any other options today due to work. Fortunately the trail was well-shaded and the heat wasn't too much of an issue.


Just some scenery along the trail. No big deal.

Nonetheless, all that aside, the take home message here is that the run sucked. The trails at Kennesaw are extremely hilly (perhaps the word "mountain" should've tipped me off)...they're constantly rising or falling with nary a flat stretch to establish any semblance of a rhythm...and the mixed dirt/gravel/rock/tree root surface makes for minimal traction as well. Good for the Civil War soldiers who once had to defend themselves against invaders here? Perhaps. Good for non-combative runners like myself? Not so much. Had Ezra not been with me, I would've either a) gotten lost; b) died; or c) gotten lost, then died. I say with no exaggeration that I couldn't have finished the run if he hadn't been there. Actually, the one silver lining in this whole debacle was thanks to him. We stopped at a water fountain along the trail at what my watch said was 47 minutes, which made me want to cry because I couldn't believe we'd only been out there for 6 miles. Turns out I'd forgotten to re-start my watch after a road crossing or something, because he was quick to inform me we were really at 67 minutes. I cannot tell you how much that positively impacted my outlook on life, if for only a short time. Had he not been there I would've never known we were really almost at 9 miles instead of 6. Like I've said before, it's the little things.

One final thought: I will be very, very sore tomorrow.

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Kennesaw Mountain Hike

120 min. hike
8 miles

After waking up way too early to take Jordan to the airport, I met my friend Christina at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield for a hike/powerwalk along the trails. This was somewhat of a weekly routing of ours when I lived in Atlanta before, and on the drive over I was reflecting on how both our lives have changed since then. Two years ago I was working for Mizuno and she was a running specialist at Dick's Sporting Goods. Now she's married and has my old job at Miz while I'm back in the ATL and reppin' it up for Brooks, not to mention so many other things that have happened in our lives since then. It's funny how so much can change and yet so much can stay the same...

But I digress. Back to the hike. Let me preface this by saying what we do out there isn't your grandma's power walk (and there wasn't a New Balance shoe between us). It's a consistent 4-4.5mph trek over rough and hilly terrain, and it gets pretty intense pretty quickly. Today it got particularly intense when a spider pounced on my ankle about 15 minutes in and gave me a nice little love bite. Granted, this pales in comparison to Jilane's rabid dog attack from yesterday, but nonetheless I was expecting to start convulsing and seeing spots at any moment. I must not be allergic, because I've lived to tell you all about it, but my throbbing ankle was not a happy camper for much of the walk. Also, I don't care what anyone says; walking is no joke and it works your muscles if you're not used to it. By the time we turned around at halfway, everything from my lower back to my feet was aching. We both hit the wall at about 90 minutes and couldn't have been more grateful to see the visitor center parking lot come into view.


A clearing along the Kennesaw Mountain trail

Despite the aggressive insects and my aching muscles, I really enjoyed taking a day off from running--my first since this cycle began six weeks ago--and spending some time with a good friend. It's nice to skip a day and not feel pressured to have to make it up or worry about how it will affect my total mileage for the week.

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