I’m recovering from my Spring races that included Sheltowee Trace Ultras 50K, the Flying Pig Marathon, and Carter Caves Half Marathon on successive weekends. While the races were absolute shit in terms of performance, I managed to get through them without injury and with a greatly improved endurance base.

Mission accomplished.

In terms of running this Summer, I’ll be focused on improving my pace. That means a lot more 5K and 10K runs with a mix of speed work including pick-ups, strides, threshold runs, hill sprints, intervals, and ladder drills.

Specifically, I’d like to get back to a sub-30 minute 5K and sub-60 minute 10K. I haven’t focused on these distances for many years, so we’ll see how it goes.

On the hiking side of things, I’ll be documenting a good number of long routes in Red River Gorge. This will take me well into Fall, but I can get 15 to 20 of them done over the next few months.

A couple of the routes I’m most looking forward to include the southern traverse and the highlight reel alternate of the Sheltowee Trace section hike from Red River down to Big Bend Ridge.

And, while many of these routes might be big day hikes, they can be turned into easy going two day, one night backpacking trips - perfect for beginners.