2008 Mini Marathon

Saturday, May 3 was the Indianapolis Mini Marathon. I and several other friends ran this race. It was a great morning for it as the temperatures were in the 50's and it was overcast much of the race. The last 3 miles or so the sun came up and was in our eyes which made it a little more difficult, but overall no complaints! I ran my personal best this year at 1:33:13. My average pace per mile was 7:07 and I finished #785 out of 30,067 finishers. Ben Hess did an excellent job with his personal best at 1:49:22. Kristen Schlegel and Joy Hess ran the 5k while we were doing the 13.1 mini. They did a great job also! Here you can look up the official results.

Kristen and I before the race.
(Photo by: Ben Hess)

Ben and I before the race.
(Photo by: Joy Hess)

Ben and Joy, Kristen and I before the race.

This officer was posing for pictures.
(Photo by: Kristen Schlegel)

Let the race begin!!!
(Photo by: Joy Hess)

Kristen Schlegel, Joy Hess, and Becky Flink before the 5k race.

Phillip Dewing, Andy Flink, and I after the race. We're still standing and smiling!!!
(Photo by: Joy Hess)

Ben and Joy, Kristen and I after the race.

Ben Hess, Andy Flink, and I.
(Photo by: Kristen Schlegel)

Kristen and I after the race.
(Photo by: Joy Hess)

BRCC Spring Hike

Another successful spring hike was accomplished this past weekend! We went down to Red River Gorge on Friday night set up camp and hiked all day on Saturday. Ben Hess and I are training for the mini marathon so we ran a 12.8 mile run before hiking Saturday morning. That gave us a chance to get rid of some excess energy!!! The weather was great on Saturday. Sunny and mid 50's to low 60.

Gordon Craig, Susan Wilson, and I right before we hit the trail!!!
(Photo by Ben Hess)

The view from the top of a ridge! Beautiful!

This farm was down in the valley right next to the river surrounded by all this amazing scenery!
Another view. Spring had sprung!

A few of the people in our group venturing a look over the edge!

A view of Double Arch across the valley. Later on we eat lunch under this arch.
(Photo by Ben Hess)

This is a cliff going up the side of Court House Rock. Just a few of us decided that we would be able to make it to the top going up through this narrow cleft. This is Ben Hess coming down.

This is the group that ventured to the top of Court House Rock.
(Photo by Ben Hess)

On the way down Court House Rock there was a very narrow area we had to squeeze through.
(Photo by Ben Hess)

A pretty creek that we hiked along.

Looking for Crawdads in the creek.

Les Moore (back) and Mark Taylor (front).

A narrow area a few of us climbed up and squeezed through to get to a ledge.

From the ledge.

Lunch under Double Arch.

View through Double Arch.

Nice view.

Another one.

We came across this sign at the end of our hike. Hummm fancy that!!!!

Backpacking Trip

Last week, March 27 - 29, I went on a backpacking trip with Ben Hess and Rich Wathen. We went to a place in southeastern Ohio called Shawnee State Forest. We planned a 40 mile loop trail that we backpacked in three days. It was a rugged trail to begin with with a lot of ridges to climb, streams to continually cross, and ravines to traverse. The fact that it had been raining the day before and that day and the creeks had risen to a high level, and the trails had become very muddy made it that much more difficult. At least we were all in good shape and up for the challenge! On the first day we hiked 12 miles. The second we did 18 miles and the third 10 miles.

Day 1:
The Beech leaves were pretty. We had MANY views like this!!!

Ben doing one of the MANY challenging creek crossings!!!

Another creek crossing.
(Picture by Ben Hess)

Because of all the rain the trail often times became a secondary stream!
(Picture by Ben Hess)

On the top of one of the many ridges that we were on!
(Picture by Ben Hess)

Ben Hess and I about a half mile away from our first nights camp.
(Picture by Rich Wathen)

Thursday nights camp. This was at the end of day one.
Notice the smoke from the wood? Ben tried hard to get a fire
going but it was raining and the wood was too wet.

Day 2:
Ben Hess going up a ridge ahead. We had already done a REALLY big
climb to get to this point!!!

I was trying to figure out how to get across yet another stream!
(Picture by Ben Hess)

A pretty Hemlock grove.

Ben and I.
(Picture by Rich Wathen)

Ben crossing on some logs.

This was a large creek. The log is about 10 feet above the water.
It was challenging to compensate balance and judgment for our packs!
(Picture by Ben Hess)

Taking a short break!

Ben and Rich.

Rich and I at our second campsite. This was the prettiest one. We were
in a hemlock grove at the juncture of two streams.
(Picture by Ben Hess)

Ben and I at our second campsite.
(Picture by Rich Wathen)

Our second camp. It had stopped raining in the late morning so we were
able to find some dry wood and have a fire!!!

Day 3 was much dryer and the easiest part of the trail was at the end. Not nearly as many up and down ridges or tough ravines with streams to work through! Overall it was just great to get outdoors and enjoy God's creation and time with friends!!!

Turkey Run State Park

On Tuesday Kristen and I went to Turkey Run State Park. It was a perfect day. The temperature was mid 40's to low 50's and the sun was shining!!! It was a great time to go because there was hardly anyone else there. There was a bit of ice and snow that made the hiking a little more difficult down in the ravines but it was very pretty!

The icicles and snow with the sun were beautiful!

Massive icicles EVERYWHERE!!!



This was a cool little waterfall! Tough picture to get though!

Breathtaking!


A view of the river.

A massive tree had fallen and was just begging to be climbed so I answered the call!

Another pretty little waterfall!

The stream that was trail #3!