Running at Grandfather

Hi, everybody. My knee is getting a little better every day, and the Food Guy is letting me go for longer and longer walks each week. I'm up to 15 minutes now. I keep telling him that I'm ready to go for a good hike, but he says the Vet told him that I have to take it easy for another month or so. I'm getting pretty good at holding my dog bed down, but I'd really rather get outside to have some fun. The Food Guy is still training for the 100 miler in August, and he decided to go for a run/hike to the top of Grandfather Mountain on Sunday. It's a hike I can't go on anyway, so I guess it was a good time for him to knock this one out. See, there are all these exposed rock faces,

slots,

and ladders on the trail. Check out Kramer on the ladder:

And, well, I'm not really a ladder climbing kind of dog. So, I would have had to sit this one out even if my bionic leg was all healed up. I can see why he wanted to do this run though. It has some pretty sweet views.

The real prize is the swinging bridge at the top of Grandfather Mountain.

Normal people drive their cars to the top and pay the entrance fee. Not the Food Guy. He and his buddy Kramer started at the Profile Trailhead over near Blowing Rock. From there it's about 2,500 feet or so to the top of McRae Peak. The climb takes place over about 4 miles, so it's steep! I've gone to almost to the top before once last fall. But we had to turn back because I couldn't make it through one of the boulder gardens. This is the spot that got me:

I told the Food Guy he'd have to finish this one without me another time. Anyway, Kramer set off Sunday morning and made the 9 mile round trip in about 4 hours, which ain't too shabby for a trip with 3,600 feet of elevation gain if you ask me.

The Food Guy has been walking a little slow the last couple of days. I think his quads took a little beating on the way down. Pretty good training for the 100, I suppose. I told him to take it easy. It's supposed to be his "off week" but I don't think that guy gets the meaning of taking time off to recover from his long runs. I mean, geez, he did 40 miles last Saturday.

I'll keep y'all posted on my recovery. Have a great week.

Time Well Spent

I'm a pretty tired doggie right about now, but I'll try to tap out a few lines to tell y'all about our weekend before I go back to sleep. The weekend started off right on Friday morning with a trip to The Dump for a little climbing. The Food Guy woke me up at 7 and said, "Let's go, lazy dog." I looked at him like he had about 7 heads. I mean, it was COLD outside, and I couldn't think of a good reason to drag myself off the down comforter to head outside. Once he picked up the climbing pack, I changed my tune since I knew that I'd probably get to hang out with my doggie friend Alabama at the crag. Alabama and I played for a few hours while Greg and the Food Guy got some climbing in. Then, we headed down to town to meet up with Reeve and O Dog to head over to Elk Knob for a run. I was pretty tired by the time we got home Friday night, but I was psyched when I saw the Food Guy and Reeve put away their coffee cups and pick up their running shoes.

In true highland fashion we got a nice "southern alpine start" and headed over towards Linville for a run on the Profile Trail. Check out the views from this place.

It's pretty sweet, eh?

The Profile Trail isn't the greatest place to run. It's straight up for 3 miles and there are some boulder garden sections that are just plain un-runnable. But, the view is totally worth the effort.

We cruised back into town after Reeve and the Food Guy ate some killer cuban sandwiches in Foscoe. I only got dog bones, by the way. Someone should talk to the Food Guy about that. Just sayin'. Then we headed over to "The Rock" to watch App State kick the crap out of Wofford on the football field for a while. Luckily the Mountaineers got the game in hand quickly, so the Food Guy could head on home to watch the Georgia game. Auburn ended up winning, which is pretty lame, but that's OK. Bama won, so at least one of my SEC teams managed to pull out a W.

I was pretty worn out by the time the Bama game ended, which is pretty reasonable since we'd already had a pretty full weekend already. I called it a day and climbed onto the down comforter to get some sleep while the Food Guy got all of our stuff ready for the next adventure. He woke me up early again this morning, so we could head up the the Boone Fork trail for a little run. I always enjoy running up there. The trail has so much diversity. Smooth single track, Rhodi caves, boulder gardens... it's got it all. After we finished our run, we drove a little further up the Parkway to check out the view from the Linn Cove Viaduct. Not too shabby, huh?

Now, it's time for some sleep. Hope y'all have a good week.