running mojo peeking through

I love it when my running mojo starts peeking out like it has this past week.  Now if it will only quit this shy act and get back with things full force.....ok, enough on dwelling on the negative, I'm gonna be happy with 2 great ones consecutively and hope that there is more in my very near future.

Every other week, Brenda and company tries to get in a long trail run and this week we did Pinnacle.  Yes, there were huge smilies when she texted back what the plan was, I've only ran this route once before but I love it.  Beautiful views, friendly people (everyone always chats on the trail), and some major calorie and lung burns from the uphill climbs.  It is a very technical trail (too damn rocky!) and has been made even more so with all the rains exposing more of the rocks and tree roots and washing away the dirt that so nicely pads things.  That means you have to pay attention to your footing otherwise you're gonna be reminded that Mother Nature is boss right quick.  The frequent and heavy rains also meant LOTS of muddy spots, even sections under water that normally aren't, we all had sopping wet shoes and socks before long and when I stripped mine off once home, even my toenails were ringed with mud that had soaked through, ewwwww.  Still lots of fun though (huge grin).

I think I might be getting my nutrition dialed in at least a little for the trails.  So far a liquid breakfast consisting of half a cup of coffee with cream and one scoop of Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem in a pint glass of water seems to be working the best.  If I have any boiled eggs I will eat one of those but even that will occasionally set my tummy off.  Today at our turnaround point I had a mini almond and apricot KIND bar and of course there's my bottle of Heed that I drink throughout.  No issues at all today but we were keeping a fairly low-key pace and I did start feeling the need for more calories at around miles 11-12.  Perhaps supplement it with a gel at this point?

View of Lake Maumelle at the turnaround point (paused to eat and 3 out of 4 of us had to find a place to pee, lol)

When we got back to our cars, our garmins were all showing different distances, none of 'em with the 15 miles that were planned so we added on with a flat loop on the paved walking trail around the parking lot and playground area.  Even with that my garmin was still NOT at the 15 miles and while most of the time I'm perfectly ok with being just under for some reason I wanted the even  mileage today so another loop through the parking lot was made.

Gorgeous, huge cypress trees

Our elevation, speed, and mileage chart from my garmin data