A Change of Scenery

How do you spell a good weekend?  It's easy  - hills, trails, good food, and brew.  This past weekend Kelly and I took a short weekend away to hit Old Rag and The Priest.  In between we stayed the night in Charlottesville.  It was a great time.

I am doing my best to make a concerted effort to add more hills and "vertical miles" to my training this year.  The lack of this type of training combined with some inexperience hampered me quite a bit last year at VT100.  We arrived late Saturday morning to Old Rag and got lucky with pretty good weather.  This was my first time doing Old Rag and was a little nervous that we would encounter big crowds because of it's popularity.  There were a handful of people on the trail but it wasn't what I would call crowded.  We ran what we could and hiked at a fast pace until we had to do some rock scrambling.  Once we reached the summit the views were spectacular.  We made it back down in good time despite the ice and snow and we even had a chance to run at a good clip on the downhills of the fire road.  I can't wait to go back.

Saturday evening we checked into our room and spent a little time in C'ville (near UVA's campus), which also happened to be one of the places that Kelly went to school and worked.  We had dinner at a place called the Mellow Mushroom, which is a pizza joint that has literally about 30 different beers on tap and has some great pie, then got ready for Day 2.

Sunday morning we packed the truck and got breakfast from Bodos, a famous bagel shop on "The Corner".  We took our breakfast and coffee and drove out to the trailhead for The Priest.  The weather was cold, 25 degrees, and windy with a fair amount of snow on the ground.  Because of the ice and snow we weren't able to run like we had wished but we did keep a decent pace as we made our way up the mountain and climb a little over 3000' in 4 miles (at least that's what we read).  Again I can't wait to tackle this trail again it was a blast.

This weekend was exactly what I needed, probably what both of us needed.  We laughed a lot, told stories about each other, talked about goals, and talked a lot about my sister Caryn. It's funny that even though she has been gone for 2 months that her spirit is even stronger.  And it's through my sister's spirit that I know that this year is going to be special.  In saying that, it is a new year so perhaps it's time for a new name for my blog.  I don't feel as though I am stumbling anymore...