A bit of catching up, a volunteering opportunity, late summer sightings and trail ethics

I started writing this post in the last few minutes of summer 2015. Tomorrow (now today) brings us the autumn equinox and the slow, beautiful slide towards winter. 

I am off on my annual camping trip in a day, though this time not to Isle Royale. That trip will need to be deferred a year due to lack of PTO (new job = resetting the time off clock to zero). Instead I am heading for the Sibley Peninsula and Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. If all goes well I will hike/run out to the Head of the Giant at least one day and gaze at Isle Royale across the water. 

I have hit a bit of a lull in my running, finding it quite hard to run more then about 11.5 miles at a time. This is not setting me up well for Wild Duluth 50K. But, I have decided to go with what feels like fun while running and figure the fire will rekindle in due time. I suspect several years of very stressful work conditions, coupled with my injury this spring, have emptied the tank and it will just take time to refill it. 

I did make it up to Superior 100 to volunteer this year. I did some crewing as well, though no pacing this year (just as well in light of my attitude towards long runs of late). 

I have been helping Andy and Kim Holak with recruiting and organizing volunteers for the Wild Duluth races on October 17th. If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in volunteering please contact me at lbmessereratgmaildotcom. As Robyn Reed points out in a recent blog post volunteering can make you a better runner!

Autumn Crocus - they always appear just as the seasons change

Sungold tomatoes - Mmmmmmm

Riders out after a heavy rain = wrecked trail.
This is on a brand new section (not open) of the Duluth Traverse

I was saddened to see the damage to the newly built trail above my house. I was exploring the area a couple of days after we received heavy rain (1.5 inches in an hour). This section is so new (built the previous week) that it isn't even open to riders yet. It will likely mean a delay in opening the trail due to the need for repair work. A similar situation happened at Lester Park earlier this year and resulted in a really nice section of new trail being closed a large part of the summer for repairs. Hopefully along with all the new trails will come a push by COGGs to educate the mountain biking public on trail ethics, something similar to IMBA's Rules of the Trail.