AR Ramblings

I’m sure this is not exciting to anyone other than myself, but I’m always amazed at how great it feels to run in a new pair of shoes. Perhaps this is because I usually wait until my old ones are seriously thrashed and beyond due for retirement. When I compared my new Hardrocks to the old ones, it looked as if the new ones had a half inch more cushion in them and were significantly narrower, even though they were the exact same model.

I have seriously beaten my old ones to hell. It doesn’t seem like they have that many miles on them (but I don’t keep track). I think adventure racing really accelerates the wear and tear on equipment - even shoes. Anyway, it felt like running on pillows when I took these guys out the first time. Awesome, awesome, awesome!

I also realized that I have a ridiculous amount of shoes that have been retired, or are semi-retired. I now have 4 pairs of Hardrocks, a pair of Salomons, a pair of Brooks Cascadias, a pair of New Balance somethings (they were free), and some Asics road shoes. And that’s after I got rid of a few, even older, pairs. If I add the 3 pairs of mountain bike shoes, 1 pair of cycling shoes, and 3 pairs of climbing shoes, that makes 15 pairs of of sport-specific shoes in the garage. That really seems ridiculous. That also may be the reason the garage smells so hellaciously awful!

I had Friday off for Labor Day weekend and decided to go for an afternoon road ride up to Mount Mitchell. Thunderstorms and rain seemed to be all around, and I was sure that I’d get pummeled somewhere between the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center and the top of Mitchell, but somehow I managed to avoid both and had a very nice ride. There was surprisingly little traffic and no tourists felt the need to endanger everyone on the road by passing me at full speed around a blind curve, instead of waiting a few seconds until it was safe. (This is usually more of a problem on the way down when they’ve finished “enjoying” the outdoors and really feel the need to haul ass back into town to marvel at the wannabe hippies who like to beg for pizza scraps while talking on cellphones in designer hemp clothing…or perhaps it is the allure of over-hyped Biltmore wine that sends them into a frenzy. I’m not sure.)

On the way up I rode within 10 feet of so of what I’ll now refer to as the Parkway Turkey. He was just chillin’ on the side of the road. He didn’t seem to be afraid of me or the traffic, but became annoyed with my picture taking and gave me a warning gobble to get out of his business. Not wanting to challenge his Turkey-Fu, I continued on with my ride and was surprised to find him still hanging out 2 hours later, on my way back! I had seen a similar turkey in almost the same place a few months ago. I think it was probably the same one and that he lives around there somewhere. If you see him, tell him I said hi!