Up And Down

- I heard that someone recently commented that I was a "determined" runner. I don't think I've lived up to that lately.

- After dropping out of the New River Marathon, I figured I'd give up on completing a marathon or an ultra in every month of 2011. But the aforementioned comment made me reconsider.

- So by Thursday I decided I'd try the May Mountain Marathon on Saturday. Also known as the Assault On Mount Pisgah. In my book, if a run has a name or a website, it's official enough for me. This one has 2 names. And a website: http://wnctrailrunner.wikispaces.com/. Good enough, let's go to the mountains.

- Only 5 people showed up to run the thing. And one dog.

- I finished 5th. But not too far behind. I'm happy with that.

- 6th if you count the dog.

- The run was a loop from the North Mills River up to the summit of Mount Pisgah, and then back down to the river.

- The uphill was extremely hard. The downhill was only hard.

- I was thrilled to have Jinnie go along and serve as part of the aid station. She's the best. She has been injured and I feel so bad for her. I can't wait until we can run together again.

- It was a great weather day. Warm, yes. But great views. And I was glad that Jinnie and Hayley (another great volunteer on the injured list!) got to climb the summit with us from the aid station.

- It was a pretty stellar field. Except for me. These mountain runners always humble me. One of them was doing this marathon as a warm-up for his journey across North Carolina on the Mountains to Sea Trail, starting on June 1. Yes, that's this upcoming week. He hopes to finish in less than 30 days.... that's over 30 miles a day....

- So now I have to run 7 more marathons this year. Hooray.

- I would classify this blog entry as: lackluster. I apologize for the sloppy bullet-point format that seems to be the "new normal" here on the blog. My new goal may be to complete one blog entry per month.

- Stop reading here.