For Amber’s birthday last fall, we went camping in Cloudland Canyon. We camped in the walk-in campground which was nice and secluded, but full due to the season.
Here’s our first day’s hike, around the West rim loop.
On the second day, we went to see the waterfalls and the overlooks near the park office.
Here are some photos.
On April 20, the weather was cool (39F/4C) and we all headed out to take part in the Run the River race nest to the Chattahoochee river in Roswell, GA.
Michelle and Amber ran in the 5K which started at 7:30. Michelle finished the race in 39:29 which was a new record for her, beating her Jingle Jog time by 11 seconds. Amber’s time was 42:32.
Then it was time for the 10K. It was a fairly flat course with just a bit of a hill at the midway mark where we turned around.
Here’s the map and data for my run:
I paced myself much better this time than for the Silver Comet 10K. My mile splits were 9:42, 10:09, 10:27, 10:56 (the hill), 10:40, 10:34 and 9:29 (per mile for the last 0.22 mile). In fact, I should have gone a bit faster since I felt pretty good at the end.
I finished in 1:05:13. I placed 415/537 overall, 230/248 among men and 37/37 among men aged 40-44. Yes, I placed absolute last in my division!
I asked a while ago how to keep track of my race times. I have figured out now that Athlinks is the best way to do so.
This Saturday, I ran the Silver Comet 10K which bills itself as once of the fastest 10K races in the area since not only is it flat, but part of the course is slightly downhill. That made it the perfect first 10K for me.
Here’s the map and data for my run:
I finished the race in 1:05:01 (chip time). My gun time was 1:05:30, according to which I was placed 474/675 overall, 285/330 among men, and 58/67 among men aged 40-44.
One of my new year resolutions this year was to do 1,000 miles in 2013.
Running a thousand miles in a year requires 2.74 miles/day or 19.19 miles/week. That is beyond my ability. But I do some cycling on the weekends. So I decided to count my cycling miles at one-third.
Let’s see how I have done since January 1.
Running: 4.26 + 4.05 + 5.1 + 4.19 + 4.04 + 3.22 + 4.11 + 4.2 + 6.04 + 4.31 + 4.25 + 6.16 + 4.2 + 4.29 + 6.33 + 4.07 = 72.82 miles
Cycling: 29.5 + 31.5 + 40.3 + 28.9 = 130.2 miles
Adding them up, we get 72.82 + 130.2/3 = 116.22 miles.
Today is February 6, the 37th day of the year. So 10% of the year is gone. To keep my pace for the 1,000 miles, I needed to do 100 miles till noon today. Thus I am on track.
In October, we usually head to North Georgia to hike, enjoy the nice weather and see some fall colors. This time we booked a room at the Len Foote Hike Inn which can only be reached by hiking 5 miles from the Amicalola Falls State Park.
Here is our hike path from Amicalola Falls to the Inn.
On our return the next day, we decided to take the Appalachian Approach trail which connects Amicalola Falls to Springer Mountain.
It was an easy introduction for our trip to LeConte Lodge in the spring.
When chocolate’s on offer, of course, I’ll run. And that’s how I registered for the Hot Chocolate 5K.
On the morning of January 13, the “Hot” referred to the weather since it was 60F early in the morning.
It was slow going to get to the race area due to traffic. About 18,000 people were taking part and traffic was completely stopped for miles.
After the race, we got some chocolate fondue with a banana and other dips. It was yummy.
Here’s a map of the route, along with elevation and my heart rate and speed graphs.
This was my first race with a timing snafu. Initially, the results online showed my chip time as 36 minutes. I knew that was definitely wrong. My Wahoo Fitness iPhone app had clocked me at 32:59 and I had started that before my corral even started running and had stopped it a little after crossing the finish line. So I sent them a correction request. My time has now been changed to 33:33, which is still about a minute too long. But I am going to let that stand.
Based on the new time of 33min 33sec, I was ranked 2169th/9083 overall, 756th/1732 among men, and 95th/269 among men aged 40-44. (Yes, men were only 19% of the 5K participants.)
Now, I am waiting for my first 10K!
Last week, I went bike riding on the Big Creek Greenway. I rode about 20 easy, flat miles.
I tried out my new Garmin Oregon 450 which I mounted on my bicycle using the Garmin bike mount.
Here is the Big Creek Greenway Bike Ride Garmin Adventure. Unfortunately, I don’t know if it’s possible to embed that map here.
Last weekend, I ran the Jingle Jog 5K. This was an exciting event because Amber, Michelle and I were all participating.
I ran this 5km race at Michelle’s pace, who did very well.
Here’s a map of the route, along with elevation, my heart rate and speed graphs.
According to the official results, my chip time was 39:40 and gun time was 43:44. I finished 1,440th out 2,133 participants, 576th out of 758 men and 70th out of 92 among men aged 40-44.
More importantly, Michelle finished in 39:40 which was faster than she had been running with me before the race. She was 1,438th among all (2,133) participants, 867th among 1,375 women/girls and 50th among 81 girls aged 0-9.
It seems like more women run than men. There were a few more women than men in the Gobble Jog and in the Jingle Jog, women outnumbered men almost 2:1.
Getting to Cohutta Wilderness is not easy as you have to drive for more than 20 miles on unpaved roads and then there’s the issue of arranging cars so you can do a point-to-point hike. On the other hand, Lake Conasauga campground is beautiful and Cohutta Wilderness has a number of great hikes.
We took Tearbritches trail to Bray Field, then followed the Conasauga River trail and finally the Hickory Creek trail for a total of 6.45 miles.
The next day, we did a short hike near the campground.
And here are some photos.
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol by Brad Bird
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