The injury bug has not left. Three weeks after initial injury and my calf is still a bad boy. Tried a 3.5 mile easy out and back on the V&T this morning and by the time I hit 2 miles, I had burning again in the soleus/gactroc junction. I don't know if one of those muscles (I can stretch both, just fine) or the Achilles tendon at its connection point that is the problem. That should teach me to run in 5 Fingers. The last place those ran is to the garbage. Never again. 
Still far too few entries for the Spectrum Challenge to hold the event. Regardless of entries, I don't even have enough volunteers. Sure makes me want to put any more effort into that or any other events. 
On the entry front, only need 20 more to make it almost worthwhile to put on. As for volunteers, I need 6 more to have enough to do it. Both of those two things happen — and soon — or otherwise, I'll be sitting at the starting line, refunding money to those who did sign up and turning away the two or three that show up on race day hoping to run.
Is winter here yet?

I had posted the Monday run to coincide with Mikaela's soccer practice, and seeing as nobody else showed up (I really didn't expect anyone) I took off for the usual 4 miler on the Kamikaze Grasshopper loop. I even took time to stretch beforehand, focusing (as much as I ever do) on the right soleus and gastroc that have been issues lately. I took off slowly (relatively) and thought as I crossed King St., "wow, almost pain free!" A harbinger to be sure. I climbed the small hills through the Rusty Bucket Spur, and I was back on the Fire Road approaching the chain, when I got a stabbing, searing pain in the right calf. Smack-dab center of the soleus. I windmilled my leg a couple of strides, looking like a triple-jumper mid leap, since I didn't want to put it on the ground. I walked a bit to the chain and used the post to try to stretch it out. No go; the dang thing was burning.
That effectively ended the run – and, quite possibly, a week or two of running – for me. I iced it last night, and this morning it is tight and painful; especially going down stairs. I'm not sure what is wrong; I know I don't hydrate enough (a couple large cups of coffee is usually the day's intake), but this particular pain is different than the usual cramping/twitchies pain I get after a long run. Though, the baby cows did have the aliens crawling underneath by the time I gimped it back to the car. 
I don't know what the problem is, and so I don't know how to fix it. I guess I'll follow RICIE for a while and see what happens.
Bummer.

The weekend run was along the famous Flume trail that leads from the Marlette Lake Dam to the junction of the Tunnel Creek and Red House Loop Trails. Surprisingly, a couple of people I run with regularly had never had the exquisite pleasure of running the trail. That needed to be addressed!
We drove a couple of cars to the end of the run at the Ponderosa, then piled into a single car to shlep back to Spooner Summit to where we were going to start the run. The weather was beautiful, and we started out.
The miles rolled by easily, and we did the 6 or so up to Marlette Lake. The trail was beautiful in the morning light.

Of course, we had to take a timeout at the lake itself for a photo, some nourishment and general fooling around.

We then took off on the Flume. Probably due to the early hour, we didn't encounter too many bikes. It's been my experience that mountain cyclists tend to sleep in longer than runners. Probably that speedy downhill they can get: the finish around noon desire can be accommodated with a later start. We trucked along, singing a song (at least I did. For some reason the song "Time" by Pink Floyd was in my head the entire run. Maybe the line "You run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking." might have had something to do with it. At least I wasn't singing out loud (too loudly or too often), or mumbling "Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying." from "Comfortably Numb."
I was feeling really well and strong on the climb to Marlette, but the start of the Flume, my lower left leg decided to alert me to burning pain. Wow. Pretty sure it is a small obscure muscle down at the ankle-calf interface. My guess is that it got jealous of all the attention the major calf muscles had been getting over the last year with the cramping and whatnot, so it decided to yell. Loudly. Still tender to the touch a day later, and I don't know what happened. At any rate, after a mile or so, it seemed to loosen up and disappear down below the pain threshold again. Things got so good toward the end of the Flume, I picked up my pace to a sub 5 minute mile. OK, maybe not a sub 5, but it felt fast and really fun. The run overall topped out at 14.4 on Abbey's Garmin, since I didn't have mine. I doubled back for a 1/2 mile or so tracking down Ann, who joined the Stupid Runner Club (I'm President Emeritus). Her crimes? Running With A Known Injury, combined with Running Farther Than You Should Have Anyway Because You Are Adding Miles Too Fast.
We finished the run together: President Emeritus and newest club member. Kind of fitting. 

What a great weekend of running in Carson City this was! First, on Saturday was the Escape From Prison Hill Half Marathon and Relay. Congratulations to all runners: everyone who started, finished! That is an achievement everyone who entered should be proud of.

The overall winner was Carson City's own Bret Long, who despite taking a spill around mile 10, and a reversed course, finished in a blistering 1:36.32 setting the reverse course record. (It has to be, since it's the first time the route was run that direction.) Second was Peter Fain from Truckee at 1:38.55, and third was Carson City resident Henares Mendez at 1:40.18. These were also the top three places on the Men's side of things.

On the Women's side, first place went to Gretchen Brugman from Truckee, CA at 1:58.26, second to Jenny Weisberg from Reno at 2:01.22 and third to (nearly local) Jessica Ogan from Virginia City, NV at 2:04.19. I remember Jessica when she worked at Java Joe's back in the day. Great job ladies!

From my perspective, the race was a resounding success in that all who started, finished, the food was awesome and nobody seemed to have a bad time. The weather was perfect for running (a bit chilly in the slight breeze for your timer) and the sun bright for the breakfast burritos afterward.

Sunday was a day of running for me. Joe, Abbey, Ben and I decided to do the full CdC Running Leg 3 from exchange point to exchange point. I needed it to accurately claim to have run every step of the relay and the rest... well who can say what another's motivation is? :-)

I ran to the exchange point from my house, then we carpooled to the start. From there I went around 200 or so feet before I got into a fight with the law. The Law of Gravity, that is. I fought the law, and the law won. Whammo. Slammed to the rocks. Two skinned knees, two skinned palms and one skinned elbow later, I decided to pop the ibu early & often, and not allow anything to scab up or stiffen, and we continued.

The climb from Centennial to the high point on McClellan is brutal. The resulting decent on Goni, sublime. The weather was perfect, the company exquisite and the finish welcome. Even the trek from the Washoe end of the trail portion to the exchange point wasn't bad. The shoulder is wide, fairly level and gravel. If you don't want to pound the pavement, you don't have to.

Now that I'm home, I'll scrub out the scrapes, shower the rest, and contemplate getting X-Rays on my wrist.