Azalea Trail Run

Trails I've hiked - The Appalachian Trail in Southwest Virginia

It was President Reagan’s favorite joke and it goes like this.

A psychiatrist was observing two little boys in a room full of horse manure. The first one was very upset with all the dirt and filth. The second little boy clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to all fours, and began digging.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked.

The happy child replied, “With all this poop there must be a pony in here somewhere.”

And I felt exactly like the optimistic boy as Lenny and I scouted the hike on the Appalachian Trail we're going to lead at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Biennial Conference Virginia Journeys . The area is famous for its feral ponies and I was happy to see the droppings.

This hike on the A.T. in southwest Virginia goes from Massey Gap in Grayson Highlands State Par to Elk Gardens (8.9 miles, 1,500 ft. of cumulative ascent). After placing a car at Elk Gardens, we drive to Massey Gap and try to find the A.T. We look at the map yet again and realize that we need to take the connecting Rhododendron Trail for a half-mile, and then pick up the A.T. southbound.

The trail crosses open meadows. Right now purple Catawba rhododendrons and flaming azaleas are in bloom. Mountain laurel will open up in a couple of weeks. Gold finches flit through the bushes. Hay has been left for the wild ponies. Soon the A.T. leaves Grayson Highlands and is back in Mt. Rogers Recreation Area . We come up two groups of ponies, including nursing foals.

These ponies were introduced and now run wild. If the herd gets too large, the park sells them at an auction in September. Unfortunately, a careless and slow hiker has let his dog run ahead and disturb the ponies. In response, the ponies rear up their hind legs to kick the dog, but the dog runs away. The dog disturbs photographers more than the ponies. The trail climbs on rocky steps and goes through Fatman Squeeze Tunnel, a narrow passage way through rocks. Finally we reach Rhododendron Gap at 5,440 feet, and find a magnificent view. We're rewarded by a flat stretch, a boulevard of beech and spruce trees.

Bluets, tiny blue flowers, carpet the ground. It's a good area for camping, though there's no water on the ridge. Open meadows, "balds," are not natural; they were created by logging, grazing, and fire. Now the U.S. Forest Service keeps the land open by the same methods. Grazing wild ponies help as well.

Further down at Thomas Knob Shelter, we meet two guys on an overnight backpack. One is dreaming of doing the A.T. in a couple of years when he retires. "You can do it," I tell him. "One step at a time.

E Speaks: Azalea Trail Run 2011

For those who may not know, Mobile is approximately 45 minutes from my house. Since I had ran in one previous 5k run I understood I needed to arrive a few minutes early to get my registration kit and my bib. Since I know how long it takes to get there and since I had a goal to arrive a few minutes early we made plans to leave the house between 6:00 and 6:30am. All was going well until we got to the heart of mobile and I realized i had grossly underestimated the size of this event. In my defense the previous race I had run had only had about 250 racers. I did not realize there would be somewhere around 6,000 racers here for this event, nor did I realize that 2 of the major exits for the  Interstate would be backed up for miles.  Fortuanately for me my wife knew her way around Mobile and got us to another exit and we pulled into the Convention Center parking lot at 7:30. Not too bad... except for one thing... The race headquarters was not at the Convention Center, but it was instead at the Civic Center... which was a little more than a half mile away. Even worse I had no idea how to get there. According to the official results there were 1614 people who finished the 5k.. I am not sure how many actually started, but as we all begin to try to start running at the same time it was quite the challenge.  the first 100 yards or so it was all about not running over the person in front of you, not getting run over by the person behind you and somehow trying to find some sort of running room to establish some type of pace. I kept a great pace, though I know I still have room for improvement. AS I neared the finish line and tried to finish strong I noticed the swarms of people who were waiting and cheering on each racer as he or she finished. the next thing I noticed was the giant clock overhead that was showing a number much lower than I expected. I sprinted for the finish line and raised both hands in the air as even though i knew hundreds had finished before me I had just set a new personal best time.   Official Results can be found  here . My results are below.

Runner's world

Fireworks

Sports 'n spokes

Runner's World

Fodor's USA, 28th Edition, The Guide for All Budgets, Where to Stay, Eat, and Explore On and Off the Beaten Path