I’ve been struggling lately with keeping a regular workout routine. It pretty much started when I crossed the finish line at the Marine Corps Marathon. Initially, I needed some time off to rest and recover both physically and mentally.

After that, I had a string of bad luck. There was a rolled ankle on my first run back that caused pain in my foot for a few weeks. Then a sinus infection that settled itself in my chest throughout most of December. And lastly my first cavity, which led to an emergency root canal. But all of that is over now and I’m still not back to a regular workout routine.

My issue isn’t running on the weekends, that’s been going fine. It’s getting a run or workout in during the week where I’m struggling. Often by the time I get home from work I’m just done. I’m not sure why that is. When I was training for Marine Corps I came home knowing my work wasn’t over yet for the day and I never questioned getting my run in. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of races coming up. Shouldn’t that be motivation enough? Not to mention the extra few pounds I packed on around the holidays. But yet I still find myself lacking a desire to do something active during the week.

Normally motivational posters work pretty well for me when I’m stuck in a rut. But they’re not cutting it for me lately. In looking back at past running logs, I found that I always experience a lull in my workouts this time of year. I guess it’s a combination of the post-holiday blues, the lack of sunlight, and the stress of returning to a normal work/daily schedule. Or maybe it’s just laziness?

In an effort to get my butt in gear, I did something unusual for me. Since Pinterest running posters and races on the schedule aren’t doing it, I went the material route instead. Don’t judge me for this, but I picked out a new running top I don’t even need as an incentive to get back on a regular running schedule.

My goal is to get back to running/working out 4-5 times per week. I think when I successfully do this two or three weeks in a row I’ll have earned my new top. I also ran across this book which looked really interesting, so I started reading it.

No one jump to any conclusions here. It just looked like an interesting read, and I think some of the stuff in the book will be helpful with my trail series this spring.

I think it’s going to help as the days continue to get longer and the sun sets a bit later in the evening, too. It’s always nice to have a bit of daylight left even after your run or workout is done. Just getting back into a regular running routine will help my motivation, too. Call it a self fulfilling prophecy, but I feel better when I’m running regularly. And when I feel better it makes me want to get out there even more.

How do you get yourself out of a rut?
Do you experience a lull in exercise during the holidays?
What do you think: Should I make my goal 2, 3, or 4 weeks of regular activity before I earn my reward?

On Saturday, Barry and I went for a long, tough trail run. I’ve decided that’s what weekends are for, at least for the next few months. Long, tough trail runs at places I don’t have time to drive to during the work week. That place this past weekend was the Cascades in the Jefferson National Forest (abut 50 minutes from our house). Hopefully over time my definition of a “long run” will change, but for now it’s up to 10 miles.

We arrived at the Cascades a little before noon on Saturday, after enjoying a slow start to the morning. It was a clear, sunny day with temp’s in the low 30’s. Pretty perfect set up for a trail run. As we got closer to the parking area, we saw more and more snow and ice. I was a bit worried about trail conditions and wondered if I should have brought my Snow Trax. But I never really had an issue.

Our plan was to run about 8 miles. The first two miles would be up to the Cascades waterfall. Then we would continue on from there up to a great overlook called Barney’s Wall that is another 2 miles from the waterfall. And from there we would head back, for a total of 8 miles round trip. Things didn’t quite work out like that, though.

From the parking area, Barry and I started off on our run and almost immediately split up. He’s so much faster than me! I took the lower trail, which is the more scenic trail, up to the falls. There was plenty of snow on the trail, but the only times I had traction issues was on the rock steps. They were very slick!

I did pretty good running early on, but the closer I got to the falls the steeper it got and I found myself hiking more. It was pretty tough going up all of these steps.

There were plenty of other hikers out on the trails, but it wasn’t terribly crowded. Everyone was very accommodating and allowed me to pass without issue. On my way up, I kept seeing more and more ice in Little Stony Creek. That gave me high hopes that the falls would be at least partially frozen. They’re so pretty when they freeze in winter!

After two miles of climbing, I ran around a large boulder and there in front of me was the Cascades waterfall. The Cascades is a 66 foot waterfall that comes off of a 200 foot tall cliff. It was mostly frozen, which made for beautiful scenery.

Barry and I had planned to meet up here. He had actually planned to run to the falls and then come back and find me. But he wasn’t there and I hadn’t seen him. I asked around to other hikers at the falls and they hadn’t seen him. There are two ways up to the falls: the upper trail and the lower trail. It turns out Barry had gone on the upper trail and we missed each other. It didn’t take long for us to meet up, though.

From there we headed up the Conservancy Trail, which neither of us had been on before. It was much less traveled than the trail to the waterfall. Our plan was to run two more miles up to Barney’s Wall, which is a cliff face with a great view of the New River Valley.

You probably noticed that I keep saying things like “our plan was” in regard to running to Barney’s Wall. That’s because we never got there. After about a half mile on the Conservancy Trail, we passed a sign post that said “Barney’s Wall 1 1/2.” However, neither of us read the entire sign. If we had actually stopped and looked, we would have seen we should have turned left to follow the sign. But instead we went to the right of the sign up a trail, following footsteps from people earlier in the day. There was also a fallen tree across where we were supposed to turn left, which made it hard to see it was a trail with the snow. Lesson learned: Stop and read the signs.

So we unknowingly continued on some kind of trail extension, the wrong way. We were no longer on the Conservancy Trail, and within a mile found ourselves on a forest road. I thought I remembered reading something about being on a forest road for a bit before getting back on the trail, and thought we needed to turn left. We ran and hiked for a bit and then Barry decided to split from me. I was doing more hiking than he wanted, and he wanted to run. The mistake we made was not agreeing on a time/place to turn around if we didn’t find the Barney’s Wall trail. That would become significant later.

I ran and hiked along for awhile, and eventually hit 4 miles. I kept going, expecting to see Barry. But I didn’t. Then I started getting scared being by myself on the forest road, and being unsure of where we were. I had gotten to a fork in the road and went left, which continued to climb upwards. But I wasn’t sure that’s where Barry had gone. I started calling out for him but never heard anything. I was worried something could have happened to him, worried about whether or not I should turn around, and worried that if I did turn around he’d be out there looking for me. But I was getting close to 5 miles and decided I needed to just turn around and head back. I wrote him a message in the snow, hoped for the best, and headed back.

In retrospect, I was probably being more dramatic and emotional than the situation called for. But I let my imagination run wild and I was both scared and worried. I ran all the way back down the forest road and back to the trail in the woods that lead down to the waterfall. Along the way, I passed the Barney’s Wall sign and found where we had made our mistake.

I made it back to the spot where the waterfall is, with a little over 7 miles on my watch and 2 miles left to go until the parking lot. I still hadn’t seen Barry and I was worried and stressed. I debated on what to do, and decided to wait a bit for him there. I figured if and when he came back down, I would catch him there. I saw some runners headed up the trail I had come down and told them if they saw a guy in red shorts and a blue shirt to please tell him to head on down. Nearly 30 minutes later, Barry appeared. I was so happy to see him and he ran up to me and gave me a big hug. I think we both learned a lesson about making a plan before splitting up while running trails.

From there, we headed back down the upper Cascades trail together for the final two miles back to the parking lot. We ended up with about a mile extra (at least three extra for Barry, with his forest road running) and much more time spent out there than planned. Trail lesson number two: carry extra water/fuel just in case! I had plenty of water in my pack, and Barry still had water left in his water bottle, too.

The first 4.5 miles of the run or so had essentially been all uphill. That means the last half of the run was all downhill, so the final two miles went by pretty quick. Barry and I were both really worn out and ready to be done at that point and I’m glad we saved the downhill for the end. 🙂

Overall, it was a good training run on trails and some good character building, too. Plenty of lessons learned! I look forward to returning for another trail run sometime so we can actually go to Barney’s Wall, too!

Have you ever panicked during a trail run?
Who watched the Super Bowl last night? Barry and I did, and we ate beef stew that cooked all day in the crock pot!

Last summer, Barry and I met a woman with a bloodhound puppy at the fair. While talking with her she mentioned that she had another bloodhound and that she was part of a Search & Rescue training group based out of Roanoke. She got our contact information and invited us out to the next training.

Since August 2014 we have been to five or so trainings, which typically take place on the weekend. Our training sites have included the ‘urban’ downtown Roanoke area, an industrial park setting, and various parks.

Hank and Scout have been thriving at these trainings, and continue to improve and learn new things each time. We work on man trailing (following the trail of a person until the person is found), identifying someone in a line up, and identifying human remains (cadaver work).

For the man trailing and line up work, the dogs are given the scent they need to find using a ‘scent article.’ In a real world setting, this could be any item (often clothing) with the subject’s scent on it, the subject being the person you’re looking for. For training, the scent article is typically a paper towel that the subject has rubbed on his or her face and neck. Each paper towel is put in it’s own bag, and we keep them on the vehicle for each person so that they’re available for use.

At the start of each trail, the dog is given then scent by allowing them to sniff the scent article. Our dogs will sniff it just by us opening the bag. Others choose to place the bag briefly on their dog’s face to give them the scent. Either way works. For lineup work, the dog is given the scent and then identifies the subject from a line up. Hank indicates by placing his front paws on the person, while Scout indicates by sitting down. Here’s a series of photos that shows another dog doing lineup work at a recent training.

Hank and Scout have both done well with lineup work, although they both seem to prefer actual tracking. Hank, especially, loves nothing more than a long trail. At a recent training, he followed a trail that started in a parking lot and went to the top of the ridgeline, both pictured below.

The trail started with giving Hank the scent of the subject he was going to be tracking.

Then it was time to get started! Hank is always wide open during these trainings, and he takes off right away. He’s very motivated, which is a good thing. That’s something they look for in a Search & Rescue dog.

This particular trail quickly transitioned off of the pavement and onto the grass before heading into the woods. The dogs do best with trails that are on grass and dirt, but they are getting better at pavement as well.

Once on the trail Hank really took off and I had a hard time keeping up with Barry and him. A little trail running got added to the mix.

Hank didn’t hesitate at all with any obstacles on the trail, and it wasn’t too long until we made it to the top of the mountain and found the subject Hank was tracking. He is always so proud of himself at the end of a trail!

When the dogs finish a trail, they give their indicator, and then we have a big over exaggerated celebration. We also carry treats for them, although they’re often not interested in them at the end of tracking for some reason.

Scout has a slightly more laid back approach to tracking than Hank. She’s still excellent at it, she just doesn’t do it at a sprint the way Hank does. That makes us a pretty good pair, since I’m able to both control and keep up with her.

This particular trail went down a paved path, across a road, and a little further down a paved path. You can see her subject in the distance in the second picture below. You can also see that Scout is tracking solely using her nose, and is not looking up and trying to look around (which is what you want).

Hank and Scout seem to really enjoy these trainings. However, Scout is usually pretty quick to lose interest, and typically only does three trails/lineup’s or so during training. That’s okay, though. We want to keep things fun for the dogs so that they don’t lose interest.

As you saw in the above pictures, the dogs each use a harness and a long, 30 foot leash, while tracking. We only attach the leash to their harness when it is time to work. When they are done on a trail, we switch the leash back to their collar so that they know they are done. When it is time to follow a trail we use the command “Go Find.” If they get distracted during a trail, we use the command “Back to Work.” We also give them a bit of encouragement along the way, by saying “Good Girl/Boy.”

Another type of work Search & Rescue dogs train for is cadaver work. This involves working with the dogs in identifying human remains. You don’t use the “Go Find” command, because the dog is not searching for a person. But you also don’t want to outright say what the dog is looking for either, in case there is family nearby at an actual search. So each handler has his/her own command to tell the dog they are looking for human remains. Ours is “leftovers,” while others in the group use “sticks and things” and “hueso” (which is Spanish for bone).

We have some actual human remains that are used as training aids. They are in containers in the metal box on the ground, just above Hank’s head in the middle picture above. He has done some work with HR, but does not seem to like this as much as finding a person. Scout, on the other hand, has shown much more aptitude for cadaver work. In the below series of pictures you can see her tracking, finding the box of remains, and giving her identification (by sitting).

At the end of each training, I record the details in Hank and Scout’s training log. The weather conditions can have a big effect on how well training goes, so I always include them in each entry. I also keep track of what type of location we were at, and what types of trails the dogs did.

I’m not sure if we will go all the way and officially become Search & Rescue certified. There is quite a lot involved with an official certification, including some obedience things that would be pretty tough for our dogs (like staying in a sit, stay for 10 minutes while the handler walks away). For now we really enjoy training with the group and letting the dogs do what they were born to do. They seem to really enjoy it, too.

In total, there are seven handlers and nine dogs that are currently part of the group. At our last training, we decided to get a group picture (with eight of the dogs). Some of the dogs don’t get along, especially the intact males (which includes Hank), so it was pretty interesting trying to figure out how we could all line up. Kind of like a puzzle.

It was quite a feat to get everyone lined up for the picture and to try and get all the dogs to hold still. This was the best we could get! Maybe we’ll give it another go on a different day.

Hank and Scout put a lot into each training, and are always so sleepy afterwards.

It takes them a few days to recover. But trust me, those are some happy pups.

If you have pets, have you ever done a specific type of training with them (obedience, agility, search & rescue, etc.)?

As I mentioned Monday, I hit the trails on Saturday afternoon for a run up Draper Mountain. I wasn’t sure what to expect due to the rain Friday afternoon and the freezing rain we had Friday night. It ended up being one of the prettiest trail runs I’ve ever been on.

There were a lot of areas along the trail where tree branches (and sometimes entire trees) were bent over the trail, due to the weight of the ice. I was careful not to break branches going through these areas so that there weren’t a bunch of broken branches when the ice melts.

Along the way I did encounter a few fallen trees across the trail. I was able to carefully climb through them each time, though.

After about a mile and a half I made to ‘The Landing’ which is a false summit of sorts. I caught my breath and stretched my calves briefly before heading up a trail called Draper Drop, which takes you up to the top in a little over a mile. I could tell things were only going to get prettier from there.

Up until this point the trails had mainly been muddy, with a few slick spots. But as I made my way to the summit, it got icier and icier. It wasn’t a solid ice, though. It was the kind of ice your shoes crush through, so my footing wasn’t too tough. The only really tricky spots were the icy rocky areas.

One thing that really helped me on my run was my new snow trax that I bought around Christmas time (basically the same thing as Yak Trax). I thought they would help on the slick conditions, and they did. What also surprised me was how well they helped in the sloppy mud on the trail. Cool!

The work to get to the top was worth it. I ended up having a really clear view (which I was hoping for). All of the tree tops were so pretty!

With most of the hard work over, it was time to head back down the mountain. Draper Drop is the only trail that connects the summit to the false summit area, but from there I decided to head down a different way than the way I came up.

Once I made it back to the false summit I headed down Easy Street briefly. Once again it was totally iced over at the top, but I didn’t fall this time.

A short way down Easy Street, I turned on a new-to-me trail: No Quarter. This was a really pretty trail with lots of mountain laurel and rhododendron. I think it will be absolutely gorgeous in spring when everything blooms.

As I got towards the bottom of the mountain, it got pretty sloppy. A lot of melting had been going on while I was running, and there was a lot more mud and water.

In total, the run was a little over 4.5 miles. Honestly, I was expecting it to be an icy, tough, and kind of pointless run. But it just goes to show you some of the runs you have the lowest expectations for can end up being the best.

When was the last time a run/workout that you had low expectations for surprised you?

I don’t know how these weekends keep flying by, but that’s exactly what they do! This one felt like another busy one, although looking back I only really did three big things. They took up a lot of time, though.

Saturday morning I took it easy and got some things done around the house (laundry, dishes, etc…). We had freezing rain all night Friday night, so this was partly to let the trails thaw out a bit. Despite the weather I was still determined to do my trail run as planned. Around lunchtime I headed over to the Draper Mountain trails in town for a run up Draper Mountain and back down. It ended up being one of the most beautiful days I’ve spent in the woods.

I ended up taking a bunch of pictures because it was so pretty in the woods. I don’t feel like they captured it very well, but I’m still planning to share a bunch of them tomorrow. Once I got home from my run I got a quick shower and grabbed something to eat before heading out to the grocery store for a big shopping trip. I decided to plan out about 10 meals for the next two weeks.

I realize that’s a pretty crappy picture. I also realized I actually have 14 meals on that list (although we already ate one of them – chicken enchiladas on Saturday night!). But either way it’s on the fridge now, so it’s official.

On Sunday morning I headed up to Roanoke with Scout for Search and Rescue training. We were working in the downtown area, an ‘urban’ environment, which is tougher for the dogs. She had a good day, though, and did pretty well! She even conquered her fear of stair wells and followed a trail that started in a parking lot and finished by going into a parking garage and up a stairwell to the top level.

Hank didn’t come this time since Barry is his handler (so official) and he had to work yesterday. Hank totally doesn’t mind, though. He likes to stay home and nap and blow slobber bubbles and stuff.

I got home from training in just enough time to grab a quick lunch, change, and head out to meet Kim for a late afternoon run. I was feeling pretty worn out at this point, and I was worried Kim would want to run 8 – 10 miles. I was prepared to tough it out, but luckily she was feeling a bit tired, too, so we settled for 5 miles. It was plenty for me!

I’m glad it’s now Monday and time to go back to work, because I need a rest after that weekend! Luckily, today is also a rest day.

Do you ever plan out several meals in advance for a week or more?
Do you have a certain day of the week that’s typically a rest day? It used to always be Sundays for me, but now I try and do two runs on the weekends and take a rest day on Mondays.
What did you do this past weekend? Who raced?