After a successful Monday morning doing my best interpretation of trail running for 5 miles, I wanted to do something slower on Tuesday, as well as get some time with my camera.
I chose to go to the Bundy Hill Preserve, the highest point in the county, coming in at a whopping 1,270 feet above sea level. It’s no mountain, that’s for sure, but it’s a beautiful wooded area, and its location is along a very rural gravel road that I often frequented on my bike due to the series of climbs on it.
I figured I’d do a loop on the trails at Bundy (there aren’t many miles) and then add on some sort of out-and-back lollipop dogleg left figure eight loop to get more miles in.
The Bundy loop was nice and pretty uneventful, and I thought about doing another loop, but instead, I headed out onto the gravel road and lumbered a few miles to end with 5.13 in my feetz.
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I didn’t see much along the way, but I got a few shots here and there.
I had stopped to photograph one old building and had gone about 20 yards down a dead-end public gravel road when I could hear what sounded like a Trumpian army of slack-jawed hicks descending upon me with AR-15s, Confederate flags waving in the wind Proud Boy style, and crosses set alight. (It’s not a stereotype if it’s true).
“SHIT!!! I’VE BEEN FOUND OUT!!! THE ‘DON’T TREAD ON ME,’ ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ HICKS KNOW THERE’S AN ARTSY LEFTY-TYPE IN THEIR MIDST; I’M FUCKED!”
Then, as I turned around, I saw what looked like the Top Gun volleyball scene breaking out, as 25 shirtless men came running towards me at speed!
As I let out a huge sigh of relief that I wasn’t about to be put in a GOP-sponsored gulag to be reprogrammed, I soon realized that it was the CMU cross country team on a training run, and utilizing the low-traffic hills; I just did. See, I DO know what I’m doing. Sort of.
They soon looped around, and I was now among them, fully shirted and walking as they sprinted by with ease. I thought about yelling out, “YOU KNOW, I RAN 5 MILES IN UNDER AN HOUR YESTERDAY!!” But then I thought better of it; I’m sure they hear that from old, sweaty fat guys along dirt roads all the time. Plus, with me wearing a shirt, they wouldn’t have believed me for a second.
Hey, that one dude is wearing a shirt! POSER!!
They were quickly out of sight, and I was left to continue on alone, satisfied enough that nothing, ahem, “moved” and with further confirmation of my heterosexuality. The whole thing was a bit surreal. But then again, so was the Top Gun volleyball scene.
After the dust settled from the topless male stampede, I went another mile or two and then headed home to get shit done. It wasn’t the greatest hike/lumber, but it was 5.13 miles of not running but still being active, so the mission was accomplished.
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No, you go in! #dirtroadgimpshack
Hope to get back in the woods for a “run” tomorrow.
Later.