The Connector

12/11/10
Saturday

Kev and I ran the Bradbury/pineland connector today. Well not the whole way to Pineland but we did make it to the powerlines and ran them for a bit. For some reason, the powerlines felt bitterly cold. Perhaps some of it was the wind whipping through the long open space and also the fact that I was a bit wet from the stream crossing.

I was surprised when we got to the first stream to see it mostly covered in a thin layer of ice and the level was much lower than last week. There were some open spots that showed us the current was still clipping along pretty good, so the ice could not be trusted.

Kev laid on his belly and shimmied across a small tree that had fallen across the stream. I went upstream a bit to where the Trail monsters crossed last weekend and found the rocks much easier to cross even though there was a lot of ice on some of them.

We then went up Tyron mountain to the "scenic visual spot" then continued on to Lawrence road. Things were not warming up as quick as last week even though it was later in the day. The only part that felt a bit warm was when running through the field on the other side of the road.

When we came upon the second stream, it was very apparent how much the water level had dropped. At the spot where The trail monsters crossed last week, there was at least 15 feet of exposed rocks making the width of the steam much smaller. I picked a spot that looked like I could jump from rock to rock but somehow ended up in the water.

At this point I was pretty wet, including my gloves, so trying to stay dry was mute. The area where they were waist deep last weekend was only up to my knees today though I suspect the water was a little colder as there was ice all around.

After a couple hundred yards of running, the water was pretty much squeezed out of my shoes and the only part that felt cold was my hands. I was pretty much fine until things opened up when we reached the powerlines.

On the way back, I just walked right across the stream, though Kev still found a way to cross without getting wet. We ran into chuck in Tyron field and explained to him how the river crossing was and off he went. He apparently decided not to cross as he caught back up to us by the time we hit the next water crossing.

He was gone like a flash and we never saw him again because I was slowed up by phone calls. I usually will only have my phone for emergencies when I am trail running alone but I was on call this weekend and if I wanted to get in a run, I had to answer when it rang.

This was a great run today as we managed to get in 8.1 miles. I really like running the connector and hope to make it the whole way to Pineland one of these times. I would also like to find the return trail from the power lines that Ian created.

8.1 miles @1:43:18