Race 37 Rope Mill Trail Half Marathon

There were four really great things about this trail race:

1.  I did not get stung by bees this year (stung 5 times during race last year)
2.  I did not fall in the river this year (there was no river crossing this year, last year got completely soaked)
3.  No knee pain - walked the entire race - no running.
4.  It was free!  For volunteering for a previous race, they gave me a free entry.

Hard to beat that!

Being an early person, had no problem getting to the race early enough to snag one of the 50 parking spaces - once filled, participants had to park a half mile way.  With plenty of time I decided to explore a bit and came across a WARNING NOTICE that said:

Use of these trails is at your own risk.  This site contains ruins of the historic 

Rope Mill...foundations, slab, and flume are unstable...extreme caution.

Yeah, this sort of got my attention...

Actually the trails we did were in a different area, so that was good.  But the sign intrigued to find a  bit more about Rope Mill.  Apparently it was a mill that produced cotton ropes that were used for plow lines and well-water buckets prior to 1900. 

At 7:45 the Race Director called us all together to go over a few pre-race items. 

note the beach ball...

Although this year's race did not contain a water crossing, Lisa (RD) did have an "alternative' for those who just would not think the race was complete without going into the water.  Note the beach ball in the picture above - these were tied with string and a rock and each contained some type of giveaway.  They would throw these into the river and whenever you were passing by that part of the river and wanted to get one - just go for it.

In case you are wondering - I did not partake in the activity, was glad to stay dry : )

At 8:00 AM we were off for the half marathon and at 8:10 the 5Kers were off.  We did a lot of zig-zagging and up & down.  I'm not sure what the total elevation gain was for the race but it was pretty hard.  I know it is not possible but it seemed like we were always going up.

Truth be told, at about mile 8 I was ready for this to be over with.  It was getting hotter as the sun got higher in the sky.  Seemed like every time I turned a corner (and there were a lot of them), I was going up hill again.  And, it appeared that the course might actually have been more than 13.1 miles.  My Garmin read 15.62 miles when I finally finished.  I do suspect my Garmin  (FR60 with Footpod) might need a calibration check, but at most it would probably be plus or minus 5-8%.  

However, I did finish the race, and for me, that is what counts.

The DIY Kitchen Island

Along with the walking to retirement (the fun part), the not so much fun part is the "fixing up the house" to retirement.  We have decided that we are not going to retire in our current house.  Therefore we need to fix it up and get it ready for the market.  To keep costs down, I want to DIY as much as I can.  Many projects ahead...  This project, building a beadboard butcher block kitchen island.

Awhile back I tiled the kitchen and during that process made the decision to tear down the existing kitchen island (it was not worth keeping).  It actually made the tiling job easier.  However that did leave me with the problem of what to do about the island.  I decided to build one.  I use the word "build" with a bit of liberty as I actually did not build the island; I bought two unfinished floor cabinets and built the structure around them.

The only part that I had trouble figuring out was how to secure the island to the floor.  Once that was figured out, the rest of the the project wasn't so bad.

Step 1 - Decide where to locate the island and mark it with painter's tape.

Step 2 - Drill the holes for the lead anchors to be able to secure 2x2s (to be able to secure the cabinets to).

much easier doing these in the grout lines

Step 3 - Secure the 2x2s to the floor.

Step 4 - Cut out areas on  the base of the cabinets so they can fit over the 2x2s and electrical wires.

Step 5 - Secure the cabinets to the 2x2s, cut out holes for the electrical outlet, and run the wiring for the outlet.

Step 6 - Another trip to Home Depot for the bead board, measure, measure again, and make the cuts.

Measure twice, cut once!

Step 7 - Secure the beadboard to the kitchen island.

Step 8 - Start the priming and securing of the 1x3s.

Step 9 - Paint the island, multiple coats after the primer.

Step 10 - Find (found at Ikea), buy, and cut butcher block top.

Step 11 - Sand & secure butcher block top to island and seal (many coats) it.

As usual, this project took longer than anticipated (but they always do : )

Still have much more to do on the kitchen makeover, but at least this step is done.




Another DIY project: Building a fence with branches, step by step instructions.

Event 36 - The Sweep

I volunteered to help out with the Sutallee Trace Trail Challenge 10 mile race this morning.  A few weeks back they (Mountain Goat Adventures) were looking for volunteers for this race and they were offering free entry into any upcoming race  this year.  Works for me.  I've volunteered before, it's usually a fun 'feel good' thing and you typically receive a T-shirt, some snacks, water,...  But Lisa (RD @ Mountain Goat) had a much better offer - include free entry into one of their future races.  So I took them up on it. My job, 10 mile race sweep.

Basically this meant I'd make sure I was behind the last runner (which is very normal for me anyway : ) and I'd remove all of the orange ribbons (hung all over the pace so folks don't get lost), take down the orange signs, pick up the orange flags,...  in essence 'sweep' the course.

So, I lined up at the back of the pack for the 10 mile race:

-

and we were off!

So for this race instead of being in the back of the pack, I was behind the back of the pack.

It wasn't too long into the race before crossing on of my favorite trail bridges:

favorite trail bridge

But soon it became time to go to work.  The rest of the time I was looking for and removing the following:

Some were easy to remove, some were not.  Also, in the spirit of keeping the trail clean, any other trash that was laying around went into the bag.  I did not come across too many empty GU Energy Gel packs.  The ones I came across, I hope they were accidently dropped by someone and not just thrown on the ground in the woods - but that might be a whole other topic of discussion.

There was a bunch of poison ivy on the trail, I did used Tecnu afterwards - sure hope it works.  I did get lost twice.  This was situational as I was the one taking down the markings.  It was sort of fun - I just had to find the 'next' orange marker on one of the paths,  But it did get to the point of looking at the soil, leaves, pine straw and trying to figure out if a few hundred people had just gone over an area!  It became very obvious when the only sneaker prints were mine : )

The only thing that really went wrong though - was my fault & could have happened anywhere -  I lost my car key on the trail in the woods.  I had it on a carabiner but at some point the key got off.  Long story short - had to call my wife after the race was over to drive the 50 miles and bring her key.  Lesson learned on my part - WILL ALWAYS HAVE SPARE KEY!

So even though I did not race this race, I still did the race and had a pretty good workout from it.
It counts : )