New Year's Eve Happy Days Trail Run

I woke up this morning at 5:00 after staying up late to watch the Titans win, knocking the Browns out of the playoffs. Jim and his son Heath said they would pick me up at 6:40 at my house to head over to the Happy Days parking lot for a long trail run. We got there a little early and I think my brother Brian, who we were meeting, was a little surprised that we beat him there since he thought he left early for once. We talked for a bit and then headed on our way.

It was a beautiful day to run. The skies started out cloudy, but quickly it became a clear sunny day. The temperature hovered around the freezing point or maybe a little cooler, but it felt perfect once we worked up a sweat.

We turned right this time at the cliffs and went on some new trails I've never been on. I'm not too familiar with all the trails there since I only run there once a month, if that. It didn't take long into our run before Jim saw a deep valley we would go down, up the other side, then head back to the same trail we came from. It was pretty fun navigating through the brush and sliding downhill and your back.

We ended up running on some cool Boy Scout trails by Camp Manatoc. One of the trails went along a ridge jutting out into the lake with water on either side. It dead-ended and at the end was an Indian carved out of wood.

We continued on and decided to do a loop around Kendall Lake. Along the way, we got some pretty good hill work in (as if we didn't already) at the cross country course. There are some monstrous hills here that would be great for hill repeats.

We finished the loop around the lake and then headed back since everyone was pretty tired. We ended up with a good 13 miles for the day.

On the way home, Jim said "We have two choices: I can either take you home or we can stop at the Hot Dog Shoppe and then take you home." I couldn't pass up the second choice, so Jim, Heath and I got a bite to eat.