Hiking, Trail Running, and My Newest Obsession
So, I have developed a new obsession. More accurately, I found one new obsession, which subsequently led to a couple others. Blog posts here have been scarce because of said obsessions, actually.
I am training for a 25k trail run next month. This led to a 14.3-mile jog through Pinnacle Mountain State Park and along the Ouachita Trail. This in turn led to my need to map the jog for all see. I then became obsessed with Google Earth, which is an incredibly powerful (and free) program. So I mapped the trek, as you can see below. I have also made the KMZ file of my hike around Pinnacle and along the OT to the Scenic Vista waypoint available for you to download and open in Google Earth.
So, I completed the course in about 3:21. That’s an average of roughly 14 minutes per mile. If you take out my 8-minute break at the Scenic Vista on the Ouachita Trail, you an average of 13.5 minutes per mile. I figure that’s pretty good, considering I climbed the East Summit Trail of Pinnacle (a steep 600 foot climb) during that time. Still, I’d like to run the Sylamore 25k in under 3 hours. To do that, I’ll have to push my average to under 12 minutes a mile. Difficult, but doable.
At any rate, this is my new obsession. I’ve added a category to the Mechanisms of Transformation to reflect this. I plan to post more about various hikes I do and make KMZ files available for those interested in such things. Maybe one day soon I can even afford a GPS device to make the tracking ultra easy.
Until next time, get outside and use those lungs!
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