Running for Betty

It's been a pretty quiet week so far here in Athens. The Food Guy has been doing a little work on his classes for the fall and I've been getting some rest. We went for a good little recovery run yesterday, and we'll do another easy one this afternoon. We need to recover a little from this weekend's adventure. It was a pretty good one.

Reeve and the Food Guy had planned a run in the memory of Reeve's Mom Betty, who died five years ago saturday. So, Food Guy, Lisa, and I loaded up Saturday morning in Mid-town and made the drive up to Reeve and Rin's place up in Scarietta. That's OTP (Outside The Perimeter for those of you who don't live around the ATL) , which means we were already halfway to the mountains by the time we got to their house. Once we loaded up in Reeve's truck, we drove up to Beech Bottom on Jack's River in the Cohuttas where Food Guy and Reeve started their run. I sat this one out and hung with my ladies because I just wasn't feel 18 miles that day. I like to leave the silly mileage (over 15) to the Food Guy. They got started and made the first river crossing of the day at Jack's River. Check it out:

Reeve and Food Guy spent the next 3 hours slogging their way up to top of Panther Creek:

It sounded like it was a brutal climb, and I'm pretty glad I missed it.

After goofing around, eating a cliff bar, and checking out the view, Food Guy and Reeve started the decent to the Conasauga River, which took them another hour or so. Then, they spent the next two hours going back and forth across the river making their way to Betty Gap. Yup, they wanted to finish at Betty Gap to honor Reeve's mom. There were 25 river crossings between Panther Creek Falls and Betty Gap. Check out Reeve at one of the prettier ones:

They're all pretty though. We went backpacking there last week, and I really do love that place. In fact, I talked Lisa, Rin and my favorite trail dog Java into hiking down Betty Gap to meet Reeve and the Food Guy. I know how tired I was last time we made that trip, so I wanted to be there to encourage Reeve and the Food Guy as they made the final climb of the day. They looked pretty tired when we met up with them. They had been running for about 5 and half hours at this point.

But, I think they were pretty happy to see us, and be near the end of the run. It was getting close to dark after all. Once we all met up, we walked together up the last mile to Betty Gap. All in all it was one of the better days we've had this year. The Food Guy was happy to go on a long run with Reeve and it was great to honor Betty. She was a really cool lady. I know Reeve misses her, so I was happy to play a small part in honoring her memory. Reeve and the Food Guy had a great run. He's still pretty tired, which is good because that means we'll take it easy and just do short runs for most of the week. Even an energetic Yellow Dog like me needs an easy week once in a while.

Well, that's about it for now. This week will be a pretty chill one. Food Guy might make a little trip over to Shaking Rock for some afternoon bouldering one day, but mostly we'll be chilling here. I'm sure we'll cook up a good adventure this weekend, so stay tuned for our next tale (ha ha that never gets old) from the woods.