Melissa, Oh?

Chris B. asked me last week to write a gear list regarding what I took, should have taken, and shouldn’t have taken on my recent trip to Mount Mitchell for winter camping. So, without further adieu, here it is:
Head to toe
Here’s what I wore on my trip:
Balaclava – I fought against one of these. I [...]

Quotes from the trip:
Me: We saw some tracks that looked like a cat. Would that be a bear? A mountain lion?
Andrew: No, that’d be a cat.
Chris: I’m gonna get one of those at some point (spoken every time someone showed him a piece of gear. Any gear.)
Chadd: I hate rabbits (spoken every time the smoke got in [...]

Destination: Mount Mitchell
Elevation: 6,684 feet to summit
Total miles I hiked: 10.5
Number of hikers in our group: 8 9 (apparently I can’t count)
Number of female hikers in our group: 1
Degrees (low) that we saw on our thermometer: 4
Feet of snow on the ground: About 2
Number of animals seen: 2
Number of animal tracks seen: a lot (I [...]

… about my hiking trip this weekend. I was going to photograph all my new gear and tell you all about it.
However, I packed my gear in my pack last night and hell if I’m going to pull it back out now!
So, I’ll show it to you when I get back.
It’s time again for the [...]

So, I’m a little late on the the whole “look back/look ahead” post that comes at the end of the year, but I was too busy celebrating the holidays to take the time to sit down and think about it! So, better late than never, right?
Last year I wrote about some thoughts on 2008, and [...]

A week from now I will be picking up my race packet and settling into my hotel room for the evening before getting up before the crack of dawn to run 26.2 miles.
And believe it or not, I’m not nervous at all.
That’s not to say that won’t change. But as of right now, I feel [...]

Recently I picked up a new bike from REI. And then I tried to ride it. And that was very, very difficult, as you can read about here. Seeing as how I have a little race to run in 33 days, I figured safe is better than sorry. So I had Jeff take off my [...]

I had to take a breather from yesterday’s post. I mean, you want to spend your day reading about running or actually have time to go out and do it? So here I am today with more “Things a person that doesn’t know much officially has learned about running”: 
Water
I used to think the rule was: don’t get [...]

Wow, working out is hard work. And I’m not just talking about pushing yourself to improve endurance, speed, motivation. I’m talking about all the other stuff that goes along with it. We’ve all heard of  target heart rate. What the heck does it mean when I’m running down the street trying to set my race pace? What [...]

The other day I purchased these crazy socks from REI:

I saw them and thought, “That’s so weird. I must buy them.”
I asked the guy at REI what he thought and he said he loves them for hiking or running and that they help prevent blisters between the toes – something I used to struggle with [...]