
So, this past weekend I was blessed to share a solid 19 miler with my favorite Kenyan, Paul Brantley. We started out the steps of the Happy Trails rental house and headed north on the trail. Six miles of gradual descent towards Abingdon, turned around and headed 9.5 back up the trail with a 500 ft elevation gain. Not enough to throw us off pace, but enough to remind us that it was uphill. Back to the house, just in time to shower, grab the bike and take off down the mountain for day one of creeping.
At some point early in our run, we passed several rental houses that were now for sale. It dawned on me that we should both move the families to Damascus and train full time. Sort of the Mammoth Lakes of the East Coast. Of course a few minutes later it dawned on me that the prospect of my family questioning my sanity coupled with the reality that bills still had to be paid, would surely prohibit execution of such a great plan. Oh well, at least I'm fairly certain that more mini-vacations to Happy Trails lie ahead.

One last note; when we arrived on Saturday, there was a large gathering in the main park area of Damascus. We discovered that it was the annual Iron Mountain Trail Run. The link below has all the details, including a video overview of the event. In short it is an ultra-marathon event with three distances; 16, 30 and 50 miles. All day, these finishers came running out of Iron Mountain and into the park. Unbelievable respect for these runners. Not sure if I'm ready for this sort of challenge, but if I ever decide to run an ultra, Damascus would seem to be the place to do it. Iron Mountain Trail Run
Sounds like a great place! I've heard really positive things about the Virginia Creeper Marathon, which I have to assume is the same trail system.
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