I’m finally getting a bit more acclimated to the humidity and decided it was time to start running again.
The last three months I haven’t been running. I think I was burned out from running and life. I wasn’t excited about running. It’s amazing how a change of scenery can get you fired up again!
Now that I’m living in a mountain town and there are trails all around me – I’m excited to run Gatlinburg.
This week started with some runs from the cabin which means all downhill then all uphill to get back. It was challenging; these roads are steep. I feel like I’m building up my legs again and that feels good.
Saturday and Sunday I drove to the Gatlinburg Trailhead parking and ran to Sugarlands Visitor Center.
On Saturday, the goal of the run was to not die. The Gatlinburg Trail follows the river the entire way and is completely in the trees so no sun, which was nice. I took a bunch of side paths and meandered around the visitor center and then headed back to my car: uneventful. I ran 4 miles.
On Sunday I wore my running pack with a bladder so I could run a little farther. About a mile in, a couple warned me a big bear just crossed the trail ahead. A second person said it moved off the trail and I should be good.
I continued on and ran to the Cove Mountain trailhead. I remembered it from yesterday and wanted to try run/hiking it. The summit is 8 miles away but my plan was to explore the trail a little at a time. I would turn around at mile 3.
Then at mile 2.5 I stumped upon a bear on the trail. It wasn’t moving, it just looked at me. I instantly turned around and looked back at him a few times. Each time he was looking at me and wasn’t moving off the trail, so I headed back down. I passed a family going up and as I passed them going down I whispered to the dad that there was a bear on the trail ahead, and he yelled to his family ‘bear ahead’, LOL. They turned around too. Now that I look at the map from my run, I bet it was the same bear.
I ran back to my car without any more bear incidents and was happy to have a 15 mile week. I just need to keep the momentum and stay motivated to run. I have 23 weeks until the Houston Marathon but hope to do a few races leading up to it.
It’s taken a few weeks to get situated and get back to training after moving here. I’m getting more used to seeing bears and driving these windy, steep mountain roads.
