New River Trail

This weekend we headed up to Virginia to camp at Claytor Lake and enjoy the outdoors over the three day weekend of unseasonably warm temperatures with one of Chris' coworkers and his wife (D&R). I was desperate for this much needed vacation, although it was anything but lazy.

Thursday: arrived after dark at the campground and pitched the tents, hung out for a bit with D & R, and headed to bed

Friday: after a delicious breakfast (D & R brought an electric griddle so we had a real, hot breakfast!) we drove ~45 minutes NE of Claytor lake to do some hiking at Cascade Falls. We parked at the base of the trail and headed up and up for about 2 miles, taking the more difficult of the routes because, hey - fitness rocks! Lots of rocks, roots, and steps made it a leg-buster of a hike, but totally worth it. On the trip back down the ridge we plopped down by the creek, enjoying the cool breeze and shade, for a picnic. With the temperature in the near-90s and the trees still bare, this spring day left its mark - the first redness/sunburn of the year! We headed back to the camp site for some showers and yummy food grilled c/o Chris - salmon and asparagus - not bad for camping! It was a late night and the box of wine was empty the next morning...a good time was had by the campfire.

Saturday: We awoke on this somewhat cooler - cloudier day for a short trail run (5K) through the park. It was a nice trail through the woods along the lakeside and was very easy (hardly any roots or rocks) which was good because I'm getting paranoid about injury in this week before the PMPB. After a quick breakfast, we loaded up the bikes and headed to the New River Trail (NRT) for some more mileage on the legs. I haven't been on a trail with a bike since I did the Virginia Creeper Trail in college. I forgot how much fun and relaxing it is! The NRT goes along the New River and offers beautiful views and as part of the Rails-to-Trails program, it's a nice wide/flat trail. Some of the trestles and bridges were amazing - I forget that the New River is so vast in Virginia (in NC we go canoeing on it as it is more of a 'creek' at the start of the river there). We made it about 8 miles from Foster Falls to Ivanhoe before stopping at a picnic shelter to enjoy lunch before biking back. We kept a pretty good clip on the ride back - about 13 mph. The last few miles I could feel the lactate in my legs, but it was good because I swapped a long run for the biking that weekend and needed to do some endurance training. After the ride, we ventured down the road to West Wind Farm vineyards to top off the day with a bottle of wine amongst friends, overlooking the valley.

All in all, a busy weekend but amazingly refreshing. I have a feeling that it's going to be hard to ever have a "lazy" vacation again - especially if there's so much to do outdoors nearby! My track workout Monday was no piece of pie (I think the biking got ahold of my quads more than I thought) but overall I think it was a great way of cross-training and working some vacation into the training plan without losing much. I was glad to get some more trail running under my belt with the upcoming trail race. On our way back home Sunday we stopped off the interstate at Pilot Mountain to take a look at the Corridor Trail which the race is predominantly composed of. Ugh - it's going to be a bit tougher than I thought. It's more like a cross between Bur-Mil Park and Claytor Lake. Not too technical, as it is a bridal trail, but definitely a trail in the woods that will be more challenging than Salem Lake. More to come on the PMPB...