A Run with Jim

Got an e-mail from Jim P last week saying he was headed my way and would like to get in a few miles together. I knew I'd be open most mornings and was looking forward, once again, to meeting a running blog buddy in real life. It's so nice, our little running web we have here. Read, write, comment with one another and then when the opportunity presents itself we get to do what we really want to do - RUN with one another.

Jim and his family were staying at his in-laws, a beautiful place on the other side of a ridge that I hadn't been to or explored yet so I was jazzed about getting somewhere new. Jim found the perfect all uphill 12 mile dirt road that stayed in the 3%-6% grade the whole way, perfect for running side by side at a conversational effort - somethng single track doesn't allow for. This was one of those dirt roads that kept us wondering what was around the next corner. I was thinking that we'd head up about 6 miles, then hit some single track on the way down. But true to what's written in Jim's blog title we could not stop wondering what was over the next hill or around the next corner. I think we made 4-5 decisions to turn around before we actually did! So, after an 8 mile climb it was more the constraint of time that forced us to finally turn around - I did have to go to work! After a few minutes on the dirt road, we hit some single track that we could have paraglided down in a few spots. We were back to the car quickly when Jim noticed that his Garmin showed a little under 12 miles and my altimeter showed 1,925' of climbing. There was just a slight glance between 2 guys who are a slave to the numbers and off we went to the closest hill for a 75' climb that would certainly take us to the 12 mile total for the morning with 2,000' of vert.

So, yea, Jim came to NC and took me for a run - pretty cool to be a guest in my own town! Hung out with Jim and his AWESOME family for a bit after and even took home some perfect tomatoes from his in-laws garden, THANKS!