Running at the Top of the East

Similar to Addy and Ed, my lady and I went to B&B to celebrate Valentine's Day (one week late) at the wonderfully secluded Butterfly Creek Inn near Columbus, NC in the Appalachian foothills. We slept lots (13 hours the first night!), ate too much and generally had a wonderful time.

One of the days we were up there, we went for a long drive and ended up on top of Mt. Mitchell, which at 6,684 feet is the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi. I had been here before years ago and it was awfully crowded, but it was completely desolate when we were up there. Only one other car. We did see a couple of bikers who were pulling weights (!!!) riding to the top. (I still can't believe the weights thing, but I saw it with my own eyes.)

Since it was late in the day, I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to get my run in. I would run down the mountain for a few miles while my lady would drive along and take pictures and videos. Lots of pictures and videos. What follows is a photo- and videographic study of my running.

Clearly starting off above the clouds.

stridin'

That would be another hairpin turn

On the dark side of the mountain

almost done

Let's finish it off with a video:



You can see that I wasn't really running that fast. Maybe 70% effort. I had a big training run planned a couple of days later and (wisely) saved my legs.

All in all, with the lady driving alongside me, I felt like I was in the Tour de France (except that I was on foot and in North Carolina, not Alp d'Huez).