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With my foot leaving me unable to run, I’ve turned to biking over the past week. I haven’t biked consistently since I had a cast on my right ankle years and years ago. Truth be told, though, I’m really enjoying it.

My mom is a runner at heart, but knee problems have kept her away from the sport for several months now. Most of the events she participates in involve her road bike. Yesterday she asked me if I’d like to do a ride – Burn Your Buns 31-mile – in Conroe on July 4. I actually agreed.

This week I’ve been mostly on the road, but when I’m in Huntsville (I move into my new apartment on Friday!) I am usually on the trails in the state park. Surprisingly, I think I enjoy both equally. I like the adrenaline that I get on the trails, but enjoy the smooth riding of the roads.

We’ll see where it takes me. Look for a bikepacking trip within the next few weeks!

…is absolutely gorgeous. It’s a damn shame we only ended up staying for 2 days out of our planned 4.

We came in on Monday night and ate up in a little ghost town outside of the park and then headed into the Chisos Mountains Basin. We set up camp with 35mph wind gusts and some crazy lightning. Luckily it didn’t rain because my rain fly was on backwards. Next time I get a new tent I’ll set it up before I take it out.

We headed out on the Pinnacles Trail the next morning at around 10am and slowly made our way up and out of the basin, into the High Chisos. The views were spectacular, but climbing 2000′ over four miles with our packs was not. After making it to our first backcountry site in Boot Canyon, we lounged around for a bit and I managed to sneak some reading in. Out of nowhere, hail started coming down, causing us to scurry about to set up camp.

With our tents pitched and the sudden storm seemingly out of our hair, we tossed our food into the bear lockers and headed off towards Emory Peak. Two miles and 1000′ later, we hit the summit. At 7831′, Emory Peak is the second highest in Texas. It’s way higher up than I’ve ever been in my life and it’s a sight I won’t soon forget.

Another two mile hike, completely devoid of water and food, brought us back to camp. As I rounded the corner coming in, something seemed amiss. A few wrinkles lined the backside of my tent. Upon closer inspection, the big tent was collapsed and hanging by pieces.

Bears.

We did the one thing the ranger told us not to do – set up our tents and leave camp, regardless of whether or not there was food in them.

After much debate, Rob and I decided to make the hike down into the basin right then and there and camp in the car. Steve and Andrew wanted a hot meal and nothing to do with any more hiking that day. They elected to make the hike in the morning.

We set off at 8:45pm, about 20 minutes before dark. We made great time and made it to the lip of the basin, a good mile from our camp, as the forest darkened around us. Unfortunately, a lightning storm was moving over the basin, and fast.

I’d never seen anything like it before. It was the most beautiful and quite possibly the most frightening display of nature that I’ve ever had the pleasure and misfortune of witnessing. We managed to avoid becoming a lightning strike statistic and made it to the basin campground just over two hours after we started the hike. We were a little wet, but alive.

The other two came in the next morning and we exchanged our separate stories and headed out to see the Rio Grande before going home. With both of our tents damaged, there was no way we could stay out there with flash lightning storms rolling in every afternoon and evening.

It was an experience, to say the least. It wasn’t exactly what we were looking forward to, but we learned a few important lessons and I witnessed the beauty of nature firsthand, an image that I’ll likely hold close to my heart for the rest of my life. I only hope that others may be so lucky.

Last Saturday I ran my first half marathon and it was a blast! I felt pretty good in the morning, despite having eaten terribly on Friday. I had a burger topped with BBQ pulled pork…I would have never even thought of that haha.

Anyway..I had my KSO Treks on and was getting some interesting looks. One other guy that I saw had the Treks and three others had the KSO’s. I decided not to carry any water for the race because there were supposedly eight aid stations scattered throughout the course. There really were eight, but man were they spread all over the place. We didn’t hit the first one until 3 miles in.

I felt pretty good coming into the little over halfway point (where we had started). At this point I had gone close to three miles without water though and I was starting to feel it. The uphills out there were absolutely insane. I had zero training on that kind of terrain so it was tough for me. I had to use tree branches on several uphills to pull myself up.

I struggled big time on the last three miles. My calves were starting to cramp because of all of the damn uphill action. When I finally came out of the woods about 1/3 mile from the finish, I was SO relieved. I came in as fast as possible with badly cramping calves, got my time and sat my ass down with some Gatorade.

My time was 2:10:20 and I averaged 9:56/mile. This is WAY slower than I run in training but I also run on pretty level ground. I was just happy to finish honestly and I was told that wasn’t a bad time for a beginner on this course. I finished 3rd in my age group and 30th overall out of 97.

During the awards, I got to talk with a guy that gave me some good advice about carrying water and such and told me about a good race in Dallas in November. Needless to say, I’ll be there.

Unfortunately, the title is something that I try so hard to do, but rarely actually accomplish. I decided to cancel my bikepacking trip last minute. Why? Because it hadn’t even occurred to me that even though the pain in my foot was barely there, biking 50 miles might just push it back over the edge and negate the two weeks of rest I had given it.

For once, I took the smart path and decided to push the trip back until late May or early June. It’s as simple as this – the half marathon is more important to me right now. I want to be able to run it.

As for my remaining runs before I head to Waco…6 mile run this Wednesday, 10 mile run on Saturday, and then another 6 mile run next Wednesday. Hopefully those runs are spaced far enough apart to allow my foot to recover. And before I forget…

My brown Fivefingers KSO Treks shipped last night! If I’m lucky, I might just have them in time for my 10 miler on Saturday. I will be running the 21K in them and damn am I excited!

I’ve been a bit out of it the past 2 weeks..I made the tough decision to give my foot a full week and a half off from any activity..and damn, I think it worked.

I ran today for the first time in about 2 weeks – an easy 3.5 miles out in the state park. I had barely any pain during the run and barely any after. I’ve only got 13 days until the half 21K so I’m going to try to get in two more 6 milers and either an 8 or 10 miler.

Tomorrow, however, is where the real fun is. I’m going out on my first solo bikepacking trip. In fact, this will be my first bikepacking trip and my first solo trip, period. I’ll try to get a map of the trip posted and a write-up first thing Wednesday morning. I plan on covering about 50 miles total, but it may end up being slightly more or slightly less. We’ll see!