Two Weeks Out!

As I sit here in my kitchen on Sunday evening, I am picturing where I will be exactly two weeks from now.  If all goes as planned, Heidi and I will be sitting in front of a cozy camp fire on the Chattooga River after our first day of hiking on the Foothills Trail.  After finishing a delicious, freeze-dried backpacking meal, we'll be kicking back, relaxing.  Suddenly, we'll catch wind of a faint sound coming out of the holler' in the distance.  "Is that a banjo?" Heidi asks.  Wait... I think I hear it too! 

Ba-da-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding...

OK, did I mention that on our first day we'll be hiking along the river where the movie "Deliverance" was filmed?  Creepy!!!  Click here for a video of that famous banjo duel.

On a more serious note, our Foothills Trail adventure is only two weeks away!  Our training has been proceeding pretty well.  Heidi ran 10 miles yesterday morning with Team in Training.  Partly because of how cold it was Saturday morning, and partly because of how much fun she had on Friday night at Cincy Beerfest, I had a bad feeling I would need to drag her out of bed.  However, when her alarm went off she got right up and hit the road in time for her 7:00am run... what a trooper!  (I of course stayed in bed:))

Heidi with the Team in Training coaching staff.  You guys rock!

On my end, I met up with my dad today for a hike on the Adena Trace trail in Brookville, IN.  This would be my first serious exercise since Louisville's Lovin' the Hills 50k last weekend, so I was a bit nervous about how my knee, which had bothered me during the race, would hold up.  Fortunately, it would do just fine!

Dad by an inlet of the lake.

The Adena Trace is a 24 mile trail which circles Brookville Lake, a large reservoir in Southeast Indiana.  We set out to do the Western half of the trail, which was anywhere from 10.5-16.5 miles long, depending upon which source you looked at (we guessed it would be about 11).  It was a gorgeous day; cold but with clear blue skies and not much wind.  The trail was very scenic, skirting the lake which provided great views along the way.  As promised in the trail description, this was a very rugged trail.  There weren't a ton of huge hills, but there were lots of ups and downs, and the trail was very narrow and obviously not very heavily traveled.  We had to keep a close eye out for blazes, as a lot of times the trail itself was barely visible.  A handful of wrong turns made for some good adventure!

The view from the dam at the end of the trail.

Our hike would end at the dam on the southern end of the lake where we had left my Jeep.  According to the Map my Run app on my phone, we hiked 12.75 miles, while my dad's GPS said we had done 11.75.  Either way, it was a good workout and a great way to spend a Sunday with my dad!  You can check out a map of the route here.

Well, that's all for now.  As always, thanks for following along on our journey, and thanks for supporting our fundraising efforts for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!

Matt