Running Down a Dream

Over 1000 blog visits in the past 6 months, that is simply amazing, thank you. This following gives me the confidence needed to continue the blog, photo books and hopefully an actual book someday soon. I have made one photo/scrap book through shutterfly of my Centennial trail adventure, as some people don’t like to read and look at photos online. The scrap books are a bit more time intensive to make and cost $ (unlike the blog), if you’re interested in buying one please send me a message. Details: 8 1/2" x 11", soft cover, 27 pages including select text from blog and 187 photos.  I’ve been laying low since racing a few weeks ago, slowly building up strength in my achilles tendon so I can go play again. Catching up on volunteering/helping friends and family with projects. I recently had the opportunity to spend a relaxing week at a good friend’s family cabin on Upper Cormorant Lake in Minnesota. This cabin being quite primitive, (especially in the winter) fee...

Well it’s been over a week since endtombed and endtrails, last week I was in full recovery mode after injuring my Achilles tendon on the 4 th running lap Sunday. Didn’t want to quit for the day only 6 hours in, but I was in pain and didn’t want to injure the Achilles more, I still have a lot of adventuring to do in the near future!! Leading up to the race, I was mentally prepared to bike 100 miles on the Salsa Blackborow. I had put 500 miles on the fatbike in the last 6 months, and had one good 30 mile outing in the sandhills about a month prior to the race. My farthest biking excursion in one day prior to this year’s endtombed had been 50 miles which I had rode during last year’s endtombed on a full suspension Kona. Come race day it was tough to be mentally focused, I haven’t been around the GF area in a few months and was happy to see all the friendly faces. But knew that I had to put all of my attention on riding if I was going to pull off 10 laps in 12 hours. I made a pact wi...

Wednesday September 16 I left Bayfield, WI and headed east for Michigan. To my knowledge I’ve never stepped foot into Michigan before and couldn’t be more excited to check out the upper peninsula which contains some of the oldest rocks in North America. My first stop in the U.P. was the Porcupine Mountains. I had decided to explore and camp near the NE entrance on the shore of Lake Superior and near the cities of White Pine and Silver City. The cross country ski trails doubled as mtb trails so I wanted to explore those, do some hiking, paddle boarding and more beach combing. The Porcupines were recommended by several others I had met along the way, and now I could see why. I arrived at Union Bay camp midafternoon, set up camp, the flies were horrible which got me motivated to start moving, so I took the Salsa Blackborow for a ride in the mountains. I started easy and rode some wide trails between the main road and beach of Lake Superior, to my amazement did not see anyone on this loop...

It’s been a solid month since I was in Alaska, but still seems like just yesterday. I love that place and cannot wait to go back. So what have I been up to..more adventuring of course! And reading, training for races, and putting together photo books of my recent adventures, more on this in another post. There was a transition week after returning to the lower 48 which included time in the rock shop, a wedding on the Yellowstone river, and visiting family and friends in the Red River Valley. On Thursday September 10 I began a journey to explore the Lake Superior shoreline, first in WI then into the U.P. of MI... getting a late start out of Grand Forks I did not quite make it to the big lake on Day 1, but rather decided to stay at Amnicon Falls St Park in WI, which was recommended from a WI native I met in AK. It was quite late when I arrived so started a fire in the rain, had a few brews and fell asleep. The next day I rode bike down to the waterfalls and checked out the area. Little ...