I had originally intended to keep up the weekly post during the road trip, but couldn't find the time associated with internet access to do so. Therefore I am just going to throw it all up in this post.
The road trip was near perfect, other than a few mishaps with the car early on. Hannah and I headed out from her parent's home extremely early on Jun 30th and promptly drove for about 15-16 hours to Fayetteville, AK to stay with some family friends of the Griffith's. We wouldn't drive another day that long for the rest of the trip and thank God for that. The next day we arrived in Albuquerque to meet our friends the Harrison's to drop off their beloved dog Luna, which was fastly becoming Hannah and myself's beloved dog as she was perfect on the long trip out there. The next day, the fun part of the road trip would start and this is where I could begin to write a book, so to spare you the reader some time, I will direct you to my photos of the trip and just list out our destinations below.
Destinations: Albuquerque, Flagstaff, LA, Big Bear Lake, Santa Monica, Big Sur, San Francisco, Marin Headlands, Point Reyes, Kings Canyon, Zion, Mesa Verde, Silverton (and the surrounding San Juans), Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Leadville, Buena Vista, Asheville (although not technically a part of the road trip considering this is my second home).
Below are my favorite photos of the trip and the link to the rest on my Facebook (you don't have to be a member or my friend to see them)
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| Volcanic Moon |
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| Big Sur |
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| High Sierras |
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| Columbine |
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| Zion |
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| Marin |
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| Tame Squirrel |
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| Massive |
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| Redwood Beauty |
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| First Pacific Sunset |
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| Humprys |
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| A Massive Descent |
And here is the link to the rest:
Road Trip '12
I would like to extend some "thank you's" to those that helped make this road trip happen: The support of the Griffith family and my family, the Ronk's who let us crash their pad in AK, Sam and Tricia who let us crash their pad ans chauffeured us around LA, the Harrison's who let us crash their pad in Leadville and chauffeured us around the Sawatch Mountains, the Hill's who let us crash their pad and offered the greatest homecoming welcome we could have, the random mechanic in NM that fixed my broken AC belt, the Meinike in Flagstaff that fixed all of my belts and got the car back into fine shape, the Civic of course, the super comfy Coleman airmattress that I slept like a baby on, the "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" website for directing us to tasty places to eat that weren't Subway, Subway (it was inevitiable), the Nation Park Service, the USFS, CA State Parks, and the US Buerea of Land Management for scenic places to explore and camp at minimal to no cost, KOA for charging us about $30 for pretty much just a shower that we only used once at the three we stayed at during the trip, Hannah for being an exellent co-piolet (how chessy is that? haha), and lastly God for keeping us safe and from killing each other since we had no radio/cd player for all but 3 days of the trip (which were the first 3 days).
And finally a review on the running. I can fully say that I have a total lack of confidence in my fitness right now. I can still go push out massivly long days on the legs, but I have zero pep in those legs and have almost completely lost all form of speed. I didn't really care about this much while doing runs on the road trip as they were meant to be relaxed endevors and more on the side of fast hiking, but upon my return to Asheville, I cranked out consecutivly slow runs and that was colminated with a ridiculously slow run in Greensboro yesterday. When you are on relativly flat trails and can only average a 10 minute mile comfortably when you could crank out 8's comfortably on that same bit of trail a few months ago, you know something is wrong. Most likely this is due to the fact that I have hardly done any speedwork if any in the past 6 months. There is no doubt that I have a solid base of miles on the legs, but it is time work some speed back into them and that will be my goal leading up to my big fall plans. I mean I love being out in the woods for a long time, but I would rather not carry those runs into the night if possible. So anyway, below is each weeks total.
Week 26: Time: 8hrs40min Distance: 38m Vert: 7,550'
Week 27: Time: 12hrs20min Distance: 44.6m Vert: 12,850'
Week 28: Time: 12hrs Distance: 39.5m Vert: 13,500'
Week 29: Time: 9hrs6min Distance: 52.1m Vert: 9,700'
