A gorgeous day for the runaround! I'd been wanting to do this whole loop for awhile, and found a perfect day before the summer humidity kicks in to get it done. I started at the Dragon tooth trailhead and went CCW. Despite knowing the route, I was still humbled by these trails. To get this loop done efficiently, there's little room for error. After some mental lows and a bad fall around McAfee Knob, I needed to scale back the intensity a little to get it done. There was good water movement at the bridge over Catawba Creek which allowed for sufficient water filtering. I had 2.75L from the start to the creek and filtered an addition ~1.75L for the North Mountain section. This seemed to work well for me. The lower section of the Andy Layne trail after the creek has a closure/detour route in effect right now (https://www.ratc.org/andy-layne-trail/), which I took to complete the loop. North mountain was a brutal but fun way to end the loop! Feeling lucky to be able to traverse these trails and soak in these iconic views. What an awesome route. I feel like I have some unfinished business here and have some thoughts about how I'd execute differently in the future...so I'll be back for another attempt (maybe supported). I know so many strong women in the area who could knock this time out of the water, so please give me a run for my money!!! I don't want this to stand for long.