While up there a group of 5 deer fed within 10 yards of me. I snapped a few photos through the brush.

Total for the week: 5.5 miles.

WED/Thurs- Skipped the scheduled track workout to attend to social obligations. These couple of late nights but me at a bit of a sleep deficit this week.

Friday- Just did a basic 4 miler out the driveway and back. With 2 rest days you would have thought this would have been faster, but I got it done.

Sunday- Marked trail starting at 6:35 am. Big group of six of us made it go fast. Did 7.5 miles in 1:30, and arrived back in time to take off with the group for a second loop.
Second loop was in 1:23. Fastest mile was mile 7 at 8:43. My legs felt pretty trashed at the end.

Mileage for the week: 22 miles
Mileage for the Month/year 119 miles.

Wednesday- The Daily Double track workout. Warmed up with a 2 mile run to the track from work. Did 2 1200m sprints, 2 800 m sprints, 2 600m sprints, and finished with 2 400 m sprints. Each sprint my pace got faster, as I went from an 8:40 mile pace, down to a 7:00 mile pace on my last sprint of the night. Cooled down with a 2 mile run back to work by headlamp.

Friday-Wasn’t feeling 100% at work with a slightly upset stomach and headache, but got the four mile run done. 2 hours after was hit with a fever and became violently ill. Went to bed and woke up feeling better except dehydrated. to quote trail runner John M. (not me) “vomiting is inconvenient, not fatal.”

Sunday- Another Double loop marking the trail at quarter to seven AM with Patrick, Lori and Doug. Started raining on us about 4 miles in on the first loop, and continued for the whole second loop. Trails were pretty dry before the new rain, but got slippery on the second loop. Felt really good as we finished the second loop with just under 2 hours of time running. I’m handling the hills better this year.

Weekly mileage: 26.25
Year to date: 74.9 miles

Wednesday- 4.43 miles on the Fleet Feet Fun run. Another Headlamp run with Marc Strozyk and the crew from Fleet Feet. He paused his Garmin at the stoplights, and our pace looked a lot better. This run was one where I felt good nearly the whole run.

Friday- 4.55 miles out the driveway with a turnaround at Garzelli’s. Didn’t realize I was at such a fast pace on the way out. I think my aerobic conditioning is improving. Almost broke an under 9min/mile pace for the whole run.

Sunday- Early morning run with Patrick From Fleet Feet, and Lori Barekman, a Physical therapist. We were marking the route for the Annadel HM training group. We did the first five mile loop in about 1:06, hung out while Marc gave his pre run talk to the group of about 80, and then took off once more for a second loop. Did the second loop in about an hour. Felt really good at the finish. If I can keep 2-looping for the next 12 weeks I will be ready for an ultra. I’m going to have to start 20 minutes earlier each week as the distance increases!

The Pope and Young Club is pleased to announce a new program to engage young bowhunters and young persons interested in learning more about bowhunting, fair chase and wildlife conservation.

A Pope and Young Club Youth Membership Program officially began January 1st. Any young person, under the age of 18, can join the Pope and Young Club as a Youth Member for just $10 per year. There are no other requirements. It’s for any interested young person: whether they are 16 years old and have started bowhunting, or 9 years old and just picked up a bow, or 5 years old and interested in learning more about big game animals. There will be something entertaining and educating for any age.

YOUTH MEMBERS will receive:

-Membership card, certificate and wristband
-Issues of the Club’s quarterly membership publication
-Access to Pope and Young Club Youth Member facebook
-Access to Pope and Young Club Youth Member website
-Special Offers and discounts

Exciting new opportunities for learning and interacting await P&Y Youth Members. Through our quarterly publication, the Youth facebook and the Youth website, we’ll be asking and challenging youth members to experience:

-”Shooting Straight”, a hunting ethics situation challenge
-”Ask the Experts”
-Bowhunting 101
-writing articles, submitting photos and videos
-special games and puzzles for all ages
-lots of opportunities for learning and growing as bowhunters/conservationists

SPECIAL OFFER – $10 Coupon from HUNTER SAFETY SYSTEMS
We are excited to announce the first special offer for P&Y Youth Members only! Every Youth Member will receive a $10 off coupon for any Hunter Safety Systems treestand safety vest or harness…an essential item for any bowhunter! We are very grateful for the Hunter Safety Systems company’s enthusiastic support of this new program!

YOU can sign up a young person who is interested in the outdoors, wildlife and/or bowhunting for P&Y YOUTH MEMBERSHIP online at www.pope-young.org/youth , or by calling 507-867-4144, or by downloading an application from the Club’s website. The upcoming issue of the Club’s quarterly publication will also have youth applications.

For more information, please visit www.pope-young.org/youth

18.2 miles for the week in 3 runs.
24.41 miles for the year in 4 runs

Tuesday- 4 miles on an out and back at 8:16 pm with the turn around at San Antonio Road.

Wednesday- 4.44 miles with Fleet Feet in Santa Rosa. Leigh, Bald Zach, Jeff, and I were schooled by 3 boys age 8-11. Granted they were all nationally ranked in the mile, and one of them ran a 5:26 mile at a national track meet. Kept them in sight until we crossed Santa Rosa Avenue on the way back. Then they left us in the dust. Got to visit with some Fleet Feet Santa Rosa Alumni, Chandra and Erin after the run at the store.

Saturday- 3.2 miles out and back in the driveway

Sunday- First run of 2012 in Annadel State park. 6.55 miles with my running family. We even took a group photo with some deer in the background. (click on picture to see full size)

On the trail with Marc Strozyk in the lead. His Garmin data is what is linked.

Marc's Garmin Data. Click for full size.

Total mileage for the Week: 18.16 miles (2011 avg was 13.58)
Total mileage for all of 2011: 679 miles in 117 runs (5.8 mile avg distance)
Total mileage for 2012: 6.55 in 1 run

Cam relates the story:

My parents got me out of bed at 5:00 in the morning and we headed up to the mountains. It was so cold that there was ice on the ground and I had to wear gloves. Our friend, Gerry, had his dogs on the dog box in the back of his truck. We drove around and tried to find a bear. Finally, around 10:00, the dogs got a bear’s scent and started the chase. They treed the bear after about 45 minutes. We got under the tree and I put the cross hairs of my .243 on it and I pulled the trigger. I hit it in the right shoulder and it fell out of the tree. I was really excited and my mom was video taping the whole thing. The dogs were going crazy. The bear fell down out of the tree and rolled down the hill. Then Gerry let the dogs have a go at the dead bear as their reward for a good job. After that we took pictures and then skinned it. I was really happy to fill my first bear tag.

Well done Cameron! This is the first of many I can tell!

Saturday. Patrick Temple organized a social trail run at Annadel for Saturday morning. we stopped at each trail intersection to group up again. When the rest of the group went up to a lookout, I cruised back to the trailhead for 6 miles on the day. One of my slowest runs, but this early in the training cycle it is just about getting them done. Speed will come later

Weekly total: 2 runs for 9.2 miles..

In 1927, a collection of CM Russell’s short stories was published, called

Trails Plowed Under

. It has been out of print for years, but I have a copy that was given to my Great Grandfather by some family friends years ago.

This story, like others in the collection cut through the glamour of the old west that Hollywood has seen fit to bestow upon it.

Merry Christmas Here’s hoping you can be as grateful as the folks below…

A SAVAGE SANTA CLAUS

“Talkin’ about Christmas,” said Bedrock, as we smoked in his cabin after supper, an’ the wind howled as it sometimes can on a blizzardy December night, “puts me in mind of one I spent in the ’60s. Me an’ a feller named Jake Mason, but better knowed as Beaver, is trappin’ an’ prospectin’ on the head of the Porcupine. We’ve struck some placer, but she’s too cold to work her. The snow’s drove all the game out of the country, an’ barrin’ a few beans and some flour, we’re plum out of grub, so we decide we’d better pull our freight before we’re snowed in.

“The winter’s been pretty open till then, but the day we start there’s a storm breaks loose that skins everything I ever seed. It looks like the snow-maker’s been holdin’ back, an’ turned the whole winter supply loose at once. Cold? Well, it would make a polar bear hunt cover.

“About noon it lets up enough so we can see our pack-hosses. We’re joggin’ along at a good gait, when old Baldy, our lead packhoss, stops an’ swings ’round in the trail, bringin’ the other three to a stand. His whinner causes me to raise my head, an’ lookin’ under my hat brim, I’m plenty surprised to see an old log shack not ten feet to the side of the trail.”

“‘I guess we’d better take that cayuse’s advice,’ says Beaver, pintin’ to Baldy, who’s got his ears straightened, lookin’ at us as much as to say: ‘What, am I packin’ fer Pilgrims; or don’t you know enough to get in out of the weather? It looks like you’d loosen these packs.’ So, takin’ Baldy’s hunch, we unsaddle.

“This cabin’s mighty ancient. It’s been two rooms, but the ridge-pole on the rear one’s rotted an’ let the roof down. The door’s wide open an’ hangs on a wooden hinge. The animal smell I get on the inside tells me there ain’t no humans lived there for many’s the winter. The floor’s strewn with pine cones an’ a few scattered bones, showin’ it’s been the home of mountain-rats an’ squirrels. Takin’ it all ‘n all, it ain’t no palace, but, in this storm, it looks mighty snug, an’ when we get a blaze started in the fireplace an’ the beans goin’ it’s comfortable.

“The door to the back’s open, an’ by the light of the fire I can see the roof hangin’ down V-shaped, leavin’ quite a little space agin the wall. Once I had a notion of walkin’ in an’ prospectin’ the place, but there’s somethin’ ghostly about it an’ I change my mind.

“When we’re rollin’ in that night, Beaver asks me what day of the month it is.

“‘If I’m right on my dates,’ says I, ‘this is the evenin’ the kids hang up their socks.’

“The hell it is,’ says he. ‘Well, here’s one camp Santy’ll probably overlook. We ain’t got no socks nor no place to hang ‘em, an’ I don’t think the old boy’d savvy our foot-rags.’ That’s the last I remember till I’m waked up along in the night by somethin’ monkeyin’ with the kettle.

“If it wasn’t fer a snufflin’ noise I could hear, I’d a-tuk it fer a trade-rat, but with this noise it’s no guess with me, an’ I call the turn all right, ’cause when I take a peek, there, humped between me an’ the fire, is the most robust silvertip I ever see. In size, he resembles a load of hay. The fire’s down low, but there’s enough light to give me his outline. He’s humped over, busy with the beans, snifflin’ an’ whinin’ pleasant, like he enjoys ‘em. I nudged Beaver easy, an’ whispers: ‘Santy Claus is here.’

“He don’t need but one look. ‘Yes,’ says he, reachin’ for his Henry, ‘but he ain’t brought nothin’ but trouble, an’ more’n a sock full of that. You couldn’t crowd it into a wagon-box.’

“This whisperin’ disturbs Mr. Bear, an’ he straightens up till he near touches the ridge-pole. He looks eight feet tall. Am I scared? Well, I’d tell a man. By the feelin’ runnin’ up and down my back, if I had bristles I’d resemble a wild hog. The cold sweat’s drippin’ off my nose, an’ I ain’t got nothin’ on me but sluice-ice.

“The bark of Beaver’s Henry brings me out of this scare. The bear goes over, upsettin’ a kettle of water, puttin’ the fire out. If it wasn’t for a stream of fire runnin’ from Beaver’s weapon, we’d be in plumb darkness. The bear’s up agin, bellerin’ an’ bawlin’, and comin’ at us mighty warlike, and by the time I get my Sharps workin’, I’m near choked with smoke. It’s the noisiest muss I was ever mixed up in. Between the smoke, the barkin’ of the guns an’ the bellerin’ of the bear, it’s like hell on a holiday.”

“I’m gropin’ for another ca’tridge when I hear the lock on Beaver’s gun click, an’ I know his magazine’s dry. Lowerin’ my hot gun, I listen. Everythin’s quiet now. In the sudden stillness I can hear the drippin’ of blood. It’s the bear’s life runnin’ out.

“‘I guess it’s all over,’ says Beaver, kind of shaky. ‘It was a short fight, but a fast one, an’ hell was poppin’ while she lasted.’

“When we get the fire lit, we take a look at the battle ground. There lays Mr. Bear in a ring of blood, with a hide so full of holes he wouldn’t hold hay. I don’t think there’s a bullet went ’round him.

“This excitement wakens us so we don’t sleep no more that night. We breakfast on bear meat. He’s an old bear an’ it’s pretty stout, but a feller livin’ on beans and bannocks straight for a couple of weeks don’t kick much on flavor, an’ we’re at a stage where meat’s meat.

“When it comes day, me an’ Beaver goes lookin’ over the bear’s bedroom. You know, daylight drives away ha’nts, an’ this room don’t look near so ghostly as it did last night. After winnin’ this fight, we’re both mighty brave. The roof caved in with four or five feet of snow on, makes the rear room still dark, so, lightin’ a pitch-pine glow, we start explorin’.

“The first thing we bump into is the bear’s bunk. There’s a rusty pick layin’ up against the wall, an’ a gold-pan on the floor, showin’ us that the human that lived there was a miner. On the other side of the shack we ran onto a pole bunk, with a weather-wrinkled buffalo robe an’ some rotten blankets. The way the roof slants, we can’t see into the bed, but by usin’ an axe an’ choppin’ the legs off, we lower it to view. When Beaver raises the light, there’s the frame-work of a man. He’s layin’ on his left side, like he’s sleepin’, an’ looks like he cashed in easy. Across the bunk, under his head, is an old-fashioned cap-’n-ball rifle. On the bedpost hangs a powder horn an’ pouch, with a belt an’ skinnin’ knife. These things tell us that this man’s a pretty old-timer.

“Findin’ the pick an’ gold-pan causes us to look more careful for what he’d been diggin’. We explore the bunk from top to bottom, but nary a find. All day long we prospects. That evenin’, when we’re fillin’ up on bear meat, beans and bannocks, Beaver says he’s goin’ to go through the bear’s bunk; so, after we smoke, relightin’ our torches, we start our search again.

“Sizin’ up the bear’s nest, we see he’d laid there quite a while. It looks like Mr. Silvertip, when the weather gets cold, starts huntin’ a winter location for his long snooze. Runnin’ onto this cabin, vacant, and lookin’ like it’s for rent, he jumps the claim an’ would have been snoozin’ there yet, but our fire warmin’ up the place fools him. He thinks it’s spring an’ steps out to look at the weather. On the way he strikes this breakfast of beans, an’ they hold him till we object.

“We’re lookin’ over this nest when somethin’ catches my eye on the edge of the waller. It’s a hole, roofed over with willers.

“‘Well, I’ll be damned. There’s his cache,’ says Beaver, whose eyes has follered mine. It don’t take a minute to kick these willers loose, an’ there lays a buckskin sack with five hundred dollars in dust in it.

“Old Santy Claus, out there,’ says Beaver, pointin’ to the bear through the door, ‘didn’t load our socks, but he brought plenty of meat an’ showed us the cache, for we’d never a-found it if he hadn’t raised the lid.’

“The day after Christmas we buried the bones, wrapped in one of our blankets, where we’d found the cache. It was the best we could do.

“I guess the dust’s ours,’ says Beaver. ‘There’s no papers to show who’s his kin-folks.’ So we splits the pile an’ leaves him sleepin’ in the tomb he built for himself.”