Jerry Cameron

Independence Day

this morning i drove out to the kettle moraine state forest for my morning constitutional. having the day off, plus my wife and kids up north at the family cabin, i took the opportunity and drove the 50 minutes southwest to hit the trails.

the last time i was out on these trails was the 2005 Ice Age Trail 50M when i barely mustered a sub-10 hour effort. today, i started from the nordic trail head and headed north. on the map below (courtesy of iceagetrail50.com), i started at #2 crossing bluff road at #3. i paused for a moment at confusion corner and correctly chose the right path to head up to #8. the Kettle 100M/100K races were held on these trails a month ago and some of the markings were still visible…which were a help as the trails look a bit different in the summer versus the spring.

i then climbed up bald bluff, pausing at the top to see the view. heading down the trail, i started to get pestered by biting flies. they especially seemed to like the back of my neck. i spent most of this section swatting at them. i made my way down the trail to stone elephant and took the spur trail to check it out. stone elephant is a large granite set of stones that some would say resembles an elephant. i patted the "elephant" on the head and headed back up the spur trail and kept heading down the trail.

i finally pulled into horseriders camp (#9) expecting to see folks with their horses out for a ride. the area was completely empty. regardless, i made it there in 1:11, covering 6.7 miles. i downed a energy gel and some h2o and began the trek back to nordic. no sooner than i stepped back on the trail, a large deer was headed down the trail in my direction. it took one look at me and headed in the other direction. by this point i was awful gamey so i don’t blame it one bit.

on the way back i passed by stone elephant and gave it a wave. i noticed an energy gel packet on the trail on the way out and stopped to pick it up on the way back. i kept glancing at my watch to see what sort of time i had remaining. i had climbed to bald bluff on the way out in about 30 minutes and turned around at 1:11 and change. after some very challenging uphills i came back to bald bluff, this time only glancing for a moment before heading down. by my watch i was tracking toward a evenly paced effort as i was around 1:51 or so and had about 30 minutes to run back to the nordic trail head.

i made the correct turn again at confusion corner and made my way back across bluff road (#3). heading through this section is great as there are alot of pine trees. the trail is littered with pine needles and a faint smell of evergreen is about. as i got within a mile of the trailhead i saw another person for the first time in over 2 hours. somehow she was hiking the trail with 3 dogs on leashes. i passed another hiker with his k9 companion and moseyed into nordic in 2:22 for a very evenly paced 14.5 mile effort.

my shoes were trashed with dirt/sand/sweat and my lower legs were caked with the same. i slipped into my cork sandles and headed back home…blaring some Killswitch Engage on the stereo.

needless to say, it was a blast to crash the trails again. i’ve done alot of running on the roads since the 2005 Ice Age Trail 50M, likely because i took such a mental and physical beating with that effort. (reminiscent of my 2007 Racine 30K effort)

MTD – 28.5
YTD – 1050
Odometer – 25,393

P.S. While writing this entry, i missed out on putting in a last second bid on a suhweet heineken polo on ebay. oh well.

05. July 2007 by Jerry Cameron
Categories: Running | Tags: kettle moraine | Comments Off on Independence Day