Things I picked up on the trail today

Hello defeat, thine name is Nutrition

I hit a wall today, hard.  Around 9.5 miles, I was just barely over halfway into my run this afternoon and bam, I was done.  It comes on just that quick.  I'm about certain it was a lack of food, I had only had one slice of pizza and a egg and chicken bagel from Chick-fil-A at that point and those were several hours earlier. 

I have always struggled with nutrition and finding the right balance between eating enough to fuel, and eating till I'm full, which is usually more than I really need.  That's defintely going to be a struggle through this process.

My 1 Kings 19 verse popped into my head when I finally gave up running and just started walking out of the trail to my car.  The Angel woke Elijah and told him to eat, that the distance was too great for him.  Kinda made me ok with having to walk out of the woods defeated today, knowing that even Elijah with his terrific relationship with God still has to eat too.

I really put my foot in it...

Back in 2009 I was running my second 50k here in Birmingham at the Oak Mountain 50k.  I was running with a good running friend of mine, Heather, and we had picked up another guy running along with us.  I can't remember his name but the two things I remember the most about him were his running style, and he didn't waste any time trying to skip from stone to stone when crossing water. 

Heather and I and all the other runners out that day were spending a awful lot of energy trying to step from stone to stone desperately trying to not get our feet wet in the creek crossing.  He just jumped right in and walked beside us chuckling the whole time.  For whatever reason I still find myself trying to stay dry even to this day.  I was going across a probably 15-20 foot wide crossing in the Moss Rock Preserve today and was about halfway across, feeling very impressed with myself at those feats of bravery I was acomplishing by staying dry so far... then slip, blooosh.  Dry, no more.  But what I found was that really made my feet feel good!  I was a like an ice cold bath, but just perfect!  I started running when I got across, and what do you know, my feet didn't fall off, and I think my shoes may even be cleaner now.  Huh!  Maybe I'll skip the stones all together from now on??

What?!?!

My cat Sebastian has the most amussing kitty personality ever!  First off, he's as stubburn as an animal can be.  When he decides he's going to get in your lap, he's gonna do it.  There's no two ways around it!  Ask my wife and right now she's chuckling at the fact that it's true, he'll just make up his mind and we better just move around him cause that's it.  But you can also tell him no, and I swear he understands it.  I'm not saying he does it, at least not all the time, but he knows the intent.  He'll shoot you a look like 'WHAT?!?!?  I'm sitting here, leave me alone!' 

I ran into an owl today.  Almost literally.  My run today started late and it was around 6:30 as I was walking out from my aforementioned defeat, and I came around a corner and this HUGE owl just swooped in, grabbed something from the side of the trail, looked at me and then flew off.  It was breathtaking, and I'll admit, I may have wet myself I was so startled.  But the look the owl gave me was priceless.  'WHAT?!?!  I saw it first, it's mine!!'  I swear!  I looked about 20 feet down the trail and there was another owl sitting in the trail looking at me too.  It's expression was more of, 'yes?  Can I help you?'  Made me laugh out loud, that's how both my cats are, one says he's doing whatever he wants, the other just kinda oblivious and then bolts away, just like the owls.

But it was impressive watching those two birds fly off.  They each had to have had 6-7 foot wingspans.  So beautiful.  I'm not sure who was scared more, me or them, but I know who got the most style points for their exit!

Aside from the joy of walking the hills, the best part of trail running is nature.  No cars to puff smoke at you, no hot asphault burning your feet, no annoying car drivers yelling "run Forrest, run"... just you and whatever God made for as far as you can see (until you turn a corner and see the parking lot ahead...).