Are You Sure Those Are Chiggers?

SIGNAL MOUNTAIN - CUMBERLAND TRAIL

OK, so, the title of this post is an inside joke between me and Amanda and a couple of others.  Anyway, I was looking for somewhere different to run and asked a few friends for recommendations, and this was the run we selected.  You're probably beginning to think that this run is all about Anna, but, well, she's my favorite person to run with, and I am usually the one schlepping the camera (and water and food and survival gear and car keys and S!Caps) so I end up taking all of the pictures...oh, yeah, and it was her birthday run!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA!

One of my favorite pictures of her ever :-)

NOPE, WE DIDN'T TAKE THE GRAND PRIZE

However, I won $10 and found $10 out by my car in the morning, so we actually came out $10 ahead...unfortunately it wasn't $640,000,000 ahead :-(

$640M all time record!

ON TO THE RUN!

Chattanooga is a short 90 minute drive from my house, and this area of the Cumberland Trail offers a lot of things to see and do, especially if you can cover a decent amount of ground.  There are a lot of other things that I want to see up here, but we could only do so much with the time we had and besides it was 90º out when we finished the run.

Trailhead.

Edward's Point Overlook (the rocky section of the hill to the right).

Tennessee River.

Lunesta.

Drop-kick to the face.

Tennessee River.

RANDOM THOUGHT:
"I wonder how many people never get to see or experience these things or places.  I really feel bad for people that can't physically do it, but those that are capable or are, otherwise, too lazy and then complain about how boring life is piss me off."

Mushroom Rock.

Just my size.

Initially we had planned to run to the Suck Creek Bridge (I think that's the name) but as it turned out we decided to head back from Mushroom Rock.  This is a tough trail, it was getting late, and it was getting hot.  At about the half-way point on the return I was almost out of water and we were reduced to walking.  I 'burned' through 60oz of my 70oz and Anna 35oz of her 40oz.  It was getting real at this point knowing that we had a tough climb out of the valley to the finish. 
As we left the house that morning I looked down at the steps and said hmm...my SteriPen...I think I should take that just in case.  So, I picked it up and put it in my pack, and it's a good thing I did!  At the creek where Anna was seen drop kicking me in the face, I took off my pack, gave her my last 10oz of water and filled a bottle and put the pen to work.  If you do a good bit of trail running or back country hiking and don't have one of these I would definitely recommend in the $90 investment.  It totally saved my (our) ass.
What a fun trip!  We definitely have to go back and explore some more places!