We run in such a beautiful land!!

To celebrate the Fourth of July, we always begin the day with an early morning trail run.  It is nice to be outdoors in God's beauty.  For the past few years we have had a tradition of doing the same loop each fourth of July (Shane's Loop and Buck Tail).  Today we decided to try something different.

We started at the Upper Corral's trail-head.  The plan was to run an out and back.  Less than a half mile on Corral's we came upon the new trail that had just been finished this spring... Highlands.  Immediately we headed right to try it out.  SO glad we did!  It was a wonderful single track, downhill, full of switchbacks.  I LOVED this trail!!


It brought us out to a parking lot where we were able to jump onto Bob's Trail and head back up to Corrals.  Well we did have to stop for pictures first....of course!

There are some really rocky parts on Bob's.  Michele hoped we could avoid any "Kris"-tastrophe's!  She was laughing so hard that she could not pronounce it correctly.

We really had a great time, 8.6 miles.  Love where I live!!

Kris' birthday trail runner (without Kris)

Birthday's are celebrated by people in a variety of ways.  Some go out to dinner feasts, others have large parties, a few may simply chose to ignore it all together. We recognize our birthdays in true runners fashion......  A TRAIL RUN!

So, this April it was Kris' birthday!  Time to celebrate.  She picked the day, she picked the trail, she took off work, and then she cancelled on us! WHAT?!?!  As a runner, what would you do?  Well, probably exactly what we did.....

Does that make us bad friends?  No, we were running in honor of her birthday, that makes us the most extreme dedicated friends anyone could ever hope for.  Lesser friends would have forgotten the planned run and moved on.  No, we ran.

The plan was to park up high on 8th street, run Corrals to Scot's then cut across the road and come down the interpretive trail.  We haven't had a chance to run this trial in the spring to see all of the waterfalls and scenery so we were very excited.  The trail did NOT disappoint.  The views were amazing.

This looks like a giant rock hand emerging from the hillside!!

We had a great time and texted Kris all of the pictures to let her know what a great Birthday run it was!  She is lucky to have such great friends!

February Report

12 Months, 12 Trails, 3 Sole Sisters!!!!

This month was Michele's turn to pick and theme our trail run.  She titled her theme.....

Heart and Sole

She made us this col magnet for our fridge and also gave us some Ghirardelli chocolates (Dark chocolate with sea salt and roasted almonds! YUM!)

Before we left her house we learned how to get swimsuit ready in 3 months from her husband.  He warned us as we went out the door that sugar is more addictive than cocaine!  As we drove we realized that today was the day that Robie was holding it's 10 minutes of registration.  Both Kris and Michele talked about how their husbands were wondering why they weren't going to do it again.  Are they daft?  Why would we WANT to do it again??  Michele said she heard the theme was something like, "to Robie or not to Robie?"

"That's not even a question."  I replied. "To NOT."

Michele's trail pick was for us to run Corrals out and back.  We drove to the first trail head (the one NOT with the bathroom).  Before we even got started Kris chugged an energy drink.....

This made here really wired before we hit the trail.

Oh boy...Heaven help us!

The run was great.  A bit chilly but a beautiful morning.  At about 2.5 miles though we hit ICE!  Lots of Ice!  This turned our run into a careful walk.  The ice lasted quite a while too.  Kris was getting a little bit annoyed at the ice.  I felt sorry for the ice because you don't want to have Kris annoyed at you, EVER.

Finally the ice disappeared as we climbed out of the canyon.  Here is where the "Shrine" is.  I'm not sure what other runners call it, but we do have our own name for everything. 

Here we each placed a stone and added to the shrine.  It is our new tradition.  Every time we trail run past it we will add a stone.

We enjoyed a glorious downhill from here.  It felt so good to open it up an bit and really run!  Especially after all of that icy walking!!

Eventually we did come to ice again.  This was at mile 3.6.  I stopped and called out, "This is it, time to turn around and head back!"  I did not feel like walking on ice again for another half mile!  So we "gathered our thoughts" got a drink, and turned back.  This is when I decided to do something really stupid.  I told Michele and Kris to run ahead so I could get some pics.

The reason this was a stupid idea was that I then had to really run hard and fast to catch up to them.  AND it was ALL UPHILL!  DO you think either of them waited for me to catch up?  If you thought they did then you haven't been reading this blog.

We enjoyed a laugh as we counted how many times Kris has fallen while running. I think we came up with FIVE or SIX! I started bragging about how I had NEVER fallen. Then we hit the ice again.  Our confidence was higher and we kept running and didn't walk.  That's when my feet when one way, my body another, my arms did a few windmills and.......

I DID NOT FALL!!  Just call me Mrs. Balance!  Still no falls for me!

It was a great day and a great run! 7.3 miles.  Afterwards Michele had treats for us!

A baby sprite and white chocolate stuffed raspberries!

YUMMY!!!

The Humble Stumble

We are so close to completing our goal of running all the trails in the Boise Ridge to Rivers Trail system.  Today's run was to mark Bob's Trail off of our list.  The thing about Bob's is that it is difficult to find a pleasant way to make it a loop.  I say pleasant because I don't particularly want to run 8th street extension if I can help it.


We drove up the 8th street connection and parked at the winter gate.  The gate happened to be open, but it isn't supposed to be at this time o the year.  We opted to park there because we both felt that knowing our luck, if we drove further, when we came back we would be locked in!

We only had to run a tiny bit before we turned onto the Corrals Trailhead # 31.  This part of Corrals is one that I really do love. It is a perfect surface with no real steep ups or downs.  We weren't on it very long when it was time to turn onto Bob's #30.

I LOVED this trail.  We were cruising along loving every minute of it!  I stopped to show Michele some really cool neon green moss on a rock.  Then I exclaimed, "I am going to pay more attention to things when we trail run!"  Right when I finished the sentence I tripped and almost ate dirt!  Perhaps I should pay attention to where my feet are hitting the ground and not just the mossy rocks.  Something Michele so kindly pointed out!

There were really cool rock formations to go over and lots of character on this trial.  Michele called them "Whoop-dee-dos."  Hmm?

Suddenly over the hill we heard barking and saw 2 dogs running towards us.  DOGS!  That is something I have great disdain for when I am running!  Michele is starting to see things my way finally (now that she got bit n the bum on a trail run!)  We did see the owners with the dogs BUT that sometimes doesn't matter.   When we got near the 2 ladies and the FOUR dogs I had my pepper spray cocked and ready in my hand. One of the dogs was circling me and sniffing my feet.  "He's really nice."  The owner squeaked.  I looked at her, holding up my pepper spray and replied coolly, "Even nice dogs bite."  Then we ran on.  We did take a brief break for a very important phone call that Michele HAD to take.  It was her Granddaughter!  :0)

We came out as the trail veered left and found ourselves at the 8th street connection.  "I am NOT running up that back to the car."  Michele declared.  I completely agreed.  So today was going to be an out and back.  Something we don't do very often.  But we were both feeling so great and thought that this trail was soooo easy!  And now comes the humbling.

The way back was tough!  It was uphill the ENTIRE way!  AND then a intense head wind!  Where did that come from?  And where did all of these hills come from? Neither of us could remember having run any down hill.  We were just enjoying the run and feeling like awesome runners!  Now we were being humbled with a tough uphill run.  At one point we approached a hill and Michel yelled, "This hill has 'W' all over it."  It took a second for me to register that she meant 'W' as in 'WALK'. So we did.  We were definitely not trying to prove anything to anyone.  Not even ourselves.

When Michele's watch hit 5 miles, she was done and walked the rest of the way to the car.  I just wanted to be done so badly that I kept running and picked up my pace. Just...To...Finish...As... Soon...As...Possible!

We discussed a few names for this run.  Haha a few were not exactly appropriate.  But we settled on a good one.  One that described how we felt by the end of this run....Humbled.

TOUGH GIRL!

So today we decided to tackled HARD GUY #33 .  We had heard a lot of terrible things about this trail and even it's name sounds daunting.  Kris's husband Dan, an avid biker, mentioned that he had NEVER seen a runner on hard guy!  Well, he has never seen Michele and I then.  We are obviously not your typical runners!

We parked at the first Corral's trail head off Bogus Basin Road.  This is a portion we have run before.  We cruised along until we came to the trail head for #33.  Here we go!

This trail wasn't the HARDEST we have ever run nor the steepest.  It did have a lot of climbing and we did do a lot of walking.  The toughest part of the trail was the uneven surface.  It did make it hard to get a good footing ad some parts were very sandy! 





 

As we ran we passed a trail on our right that was unmarked.  Michele said she thought that it was the "Dry Creek" trail that we had heard about.  It is not part of the Ridge to Rivers Trail system so is not on our map.  As we continued to run we could see the trail below us windy around.

It may be hard to see in these pictures but it is down there!  I almost tripped a few times because I was looking down into the ravine instead of where I was going.  "I want to run down there!" I said.  Michele agreed.  We started hatching a plan right then and there.






Since Hard Guy kept CLIMBING and CLIMBING we decided we had the general idea of what this trail was like....a climb.  Although as a side note, Five Mile Gulch makes Hard Guy look lie a beginner trail!  We decided we would turn around ad head back to that trail we saw!  We ended up running about 2/3 of Hard Guy, enough to say we had done it, and don't need to do it again!

SO, we happily turned around at mile 4.6 ish and headed back to that unmarked trail.  Unfortunately, running Hard Guy down hill wasn't as pleasurable as running down hill usually is.  It was a bit too jarring because of the steepness and uneven terrain.  At just over 6 miles we reached the unmarked trail.  Down we go!

This was the greatest trail EVER!  Every once in a while we find a trail that we love so much we want to run it again!  This is one of those trails!  Fabulous surface, easy up and down hills, interesting ,single track, beautiful scenery.  Can't wait to see what this one looks like in the spring!  We eve got to cross a creek!

Well, I crossed the creek fine. Michele had a little trouble.



Beautiful Scenery

Cool Rock Formations


This "Dry Creek" Trail ended at Bogus Basin Road.  Michele had read about it in one of her mountain biking books.  "It should be just a short run up the road to where we parked."  Well, that was not exactly true.  Here we were running on a part of the road that we had never ran before, having no idea how long we had to run to get to Michele's car and at this point we had no idea where the car even was!

It turned out to be about 2 miles.

SO we tackled Hard Guy and in the process found a new favorite trail.  That gives us the self-proclaimed titled of TOUGH GIRL!

And what of Dan the biking "expert"?  Well, when he found out about our adventures he set out that day to try out Dry Creek and loved it!  We are such a good influence on him!

Our Attempt to Kill Kris....Failed

Now that wasn't truly our goal today.  But, she sure thinks it was!  Let me explain.

Our goal today was to get a 16 mile trail run in today.  Kris wanted to run with us but not THAT FAR! So, we compromised......

Michele and I arrived at the Camel's Back parking lot.  We called Kris and told her to leave her house now. Then we ran Hill road to Bogus Basin Road. 

Now before I get in to this run too much I need to mention that the temperatures have been triple digits for like 5 days in a row!  Today was forcasted to be 104.  We left as early as was possible, but it turns out later we learn...not early enough.

So Kris passes us in her car as we are running up Bogus Basin Road.  As you would expect she hollers at us out the window and sufficiently harasses us.  She parks at the trail head and waits for us...THIS is the compromise. It is about 3.25 miles for us to get to the trail head #31 Corrals.  When we arrive we are ALREADY HOT, and ALREADY SUPER THIRSTY.  But we count up how many ounces we have and think...yep we are good.  I wish there had been a little voice saying, "Nope you don't have enough, it's too hot today!"

We LOVED Corrals.  From the first trail head that it.  We had nice rolling downhills with a few ups.  If you start at the SECOND trail head it looks like a killer climb. Don't do it!



I brought my pepper spray today.  There have been a lot of fires and we thought there may be a chance that some animals that we don't want to meet may try and meet us.  As we ran Michele looked up ahead and shouted "Animal on the trail!"  Instantly we clumped together and I reached for my spray.  You can imagine how dorky we felt when we then realized it was a DOG.  But in our defense it's owners were a bit behind it and out of sight.

Kris started going on and on about what if we saw a Wolf.  "There are wolves by Table Rock, the fires could have driven them here."  When neither Michele or I really answered she said, "Oh you two would run ahead fast and they would get me and eat me up.  Then you can remember your friend who saved your lives by being eaten by wolves."  Michele laughed and said, "Jodi you can write a book about it."  "yes," I answered, "And I will call it the last sacrifice."

After a great enjoyable run on Corrals we can to a fork and took the left to go onto Scott's Trail #32.  Now Michele and I ran this particular trail in February, so we were prepared that it was a DOOZY.  Kris however, it was a first for her.  How did she feel about it?  "Every night I pray and thank God for such wonderful friends who get me out the door and running each morning.  I think I am going to STOP doing that!"   She was already feeling like we were going to kill her/

At this point I was already feeling dehydrated.  But I kept drinking and tried no to push it too much.

Scott's ends at the 8th Street Extension.  We took a left (actually we debated about left or right.  Michele insisted it was left, we weren't sure so we followed her insistence- to a success).  We came to the Hulls Gulch Interpretive Trail head #0.  This trail was AWESOME!  Definitely one to do in the spring!  I wish we had a camera today.  We crossed many bridges, it was downhill with switch backs, there was a tiny waterfall which would be much better with the early spring run off... Just absolutely loved this trail.

However at this point our fluids are rapidly decreasing and becoming very warm.  Drinking warm Gatorade or water to hydrate is NOT FUN.  I was really starting to feel the energy zap out of me and head straight to the sun.

When Trail #0 ended we had a brief run on #4 (thankfully VERY BRIEF) and then we turned onto Crestline Trail #28.  This is a trail we are familiar with and have ran many times.  Only problem today was THE HEAT.  It was really beginning to take it's toll.  We were all slowing down and talking less.

Something new on this trail was that we didn't stay on it until it meets with Kestral.  We turned right on Red Cliffs #39.  We all liked this trail much better.  It is still downhill, just not as steep.  Well, I'm not sure if Kris liked this better or not.  At this point in the run she was convinced we were trying to kill her.

When we came out to the 8th Street Extension we had three options, hit Kestral to Owl's Roost, the road or this back gravel road that connects with Red Fox.  Kris decided for us "THE ROAD! IT IS SHORTER!"  None of us disagreed.  We wanted this run finished!  We took the road to the parking lot and then joined the Gold Finch Trail out to Red Fox and DONE!

The full mileage was about 15.5, just over 3 hours.  It was HOT!  We were all out of water and walked to the drinking fountain at Camel's Back where we drank enough to last a normal person a few days!  We were so sapped of energy!  Kris was now convinced we were definitely out to kill her.  "I now know my trail limit!"  she announced, "SEVEN!  My limit is SEVEN MILES!"  It is always fun to have her along...I sure hope she changes her mind.

This run really dehydrated me.  Another day of losing over 6 pounds on a run.  And that weight was taken after a couple water bottles, a sprite, a PB and honey sandwich and french fries.  Imagine if I weighed myself before ANY OF THAT!  I think it was so bad because I wore the socks that I got from the Race to Robie Creek.....I should have known better.

Valentine's Day "Heartbreaker" Trail Run...aka the Heart walk-a-thon!

It's Valentine's Day!  A perfect day to spend with those you love; your trail shoes, the trails and your running partner!  Haha!
Michele told me I got to choose our trail for today.  This is quite an honor since she had recently forbade me from choosing any more trails since my choices always end up being back breakers!  So after consulting my trail maps and reading some facebook comments from other local trail runners I picked out what I thought looked like a good 6 mile loop.
We headed up the 8th street extension, intending to park at the parking lot by the Hull's Interpretive trail #0. This was the first time either of us had ventured up this way.  On the drive up we passed by what looked like the remains of a lawnmower that had been hit by a nuclear bomb.  Not exactly a good omen.
We came up to a locked gate.  We could not drive all the way up to the parking lot.  Apparently it is locked until mid-may.Therefore, we could only get within a tenth of a mile or so from the parking lot.  Good enough!  We parked there by the gate and started walking.  We have learned that on our trails, we need a short warm up walk anyway. (especially when the road is still uphill).

 

 This is a view of the gate.  This is NOT Michele's car.  It is an old man's car who was walking two GIGANTIC white poodles. No joke these things were the size of ponies!

We quickly found our trail head for Corral's #31 and off we go!

 This trail was wonderful! So welcoming.  A nice surface, slightly downhill, good running trail.  We were both so excited by my trail choice.  But then we realized it was a trap.  Like a predator that entices you near its den with good smells and a promise of fun.  Then when it is too late to turn back SNAP! Its got you!  That is exactly what happened to us.
We were enjoying the trail so much, when suddenly!  We came to a fork in the road.  We were now going to switch trails and continue on Scott's Trail #32.  That way we could make a loop (I strongly dislike out and backs).

This is when out of no where we were blind sided out of our stupor of lulling downhill enjoyment.
The land of uphills attacked and attacked and attacked!  It was crazy.  Then to make it even more interesting, the trail became narrow with a terrible runoff trench down the center.  The trails were frozen, no mud, but the ruts and incline made it so challenging to run!  Just walking was making us both breathe like we were in labor!  That is when we decided that had now become a walk-a-thon.  Since we were doing so much walking!

 We did a new stride as we ran.  Michele called it the cowboy Scott!  You can imagine what this looked like since you had to basically straddle the trail at some points while trying to run.  We also have come to realize that we loose our common sense brain cells while running hard trails.  I also lose the ability to do any math of any kind which is pretty bad since my degree is in Mathematics.  Michele loses the ability to read.  So we make quite the pair!  It also begins difficult to form words into coherent thoughts.  I would yell back things to Michele as we trudged up hills.  She confessed that she only processes about half of what I say and the just make a sound in response.

We would be walking a hill and I would then decide to run.  I'd call out "Let's do it!  Come on!" Then I'd start running (more like fast shuffling).  I'd hear a reply behind me of "NO!"  But Michele would end up running anyway!

We saw a lot of things today.  Beautiful views! (This is a view of Boise)

 The snow line!

A very close look of Bogus, but I forgot to take a picture.

A weird Christmas Shrine of sorts.

Then as I posed by it I realized that I hoped there was not something or someone buried here. Some crazy runner perhaps?

But the most glorious thing we saw was this......

 The fence that marked the END of Scott's Trail!  Hallelujah!!  I have never been so glad to exit a trail before!! Michele informed me at this point that she would NEVER run Scott's trail EVER again.

We then were running down the 8th street connection.  It was nice and wide and downhill (mostly) but still a crazy run.  That road is full of crevices, ruts, inclines and sand pits!  It also has very large and deep puddles of water that were partly frozen.  When we came upon the first one Michele said, "I dare you to run across that and see if you can do it without falling in. Come on let's see if you can walk on water."  Now you know how I say I am "always in" when Michele suggests something.  Well, while that may be true, I am not stupid.  So , no I did not try to run across that half frozen pond nor did I try to run over every other one that we encountered that she wanted me to try out.

Michele began to get the "Loopys" as I am going to call them.  On flat ground this usually occurs around mile 17 or 18.  Your thinking gets foggy and you get a little giddy.  Small thinks can set you to laughing, you get puppet legs and sometimes even begin to hear things that aren't there like

But, we did it! 6.6 miles to an elevation of 4,805 feet. Out actual elevation climb was 1,380 feet in 3.4 miles.  It was a harder run than the 16 miler we did on the greenbelt last week and also more fun!  Trail running always is more of an adventure than any other run. So Happy Valentine's day!  We had a great Heartbreaker run!  Though we both agreed it was also a lung-breaker, ankle-breaker, back-breaker, and leg-breaker!

Side note!  We saw the Poop Count sign on our way today.  You will be pleased to know that piles of poop is down from last years count of 81 to 40.  Way to go dog owners!  All of us runners thank you (as do our shoes!)

Another thought.  Why is Scott's Trail thusly named?  I am curious who this Scott guy is. He must be quite insane!!