It was a beautiful (but cold) morning biking out Catawba Road, and I arrived at the trailhead with frozen toes despite the plastic bags I had put over my shoes in an attempt to keep warm. After stashing my bike at the bottom of the hill across the road from the North Mountain trailhead to keep it out of sight, I set off on foot towards Dragon's Tooth. After about a minute I realized that I still had my bike helmet on, so I went back, left it by my bike, then actually got going on the loop. It was a great day for running, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature rose from low 30s when I left Blacksburg to mid 40s later in the day. The feeling in my legs and splits on my watch by mile 4 after going up and down Dragon's Tooth didn't inspire any confidence that I would beat the sun back to Blacksburg as I had hoped though. I stopped to fill up my vest with 2 liters of water from Catawba Creek before climbing up onto the ridge, which took some time but meant no stops to search for water along the top. Once I got rolling along the ridge on the south side of the loop my legs started feeling better and I was making better time. I began to think around 10 hours may still be in the cards. It didn't feel like long until I got over Tinker Cliffs and descended off the ridge, where I ran into the new detour at the bottom of the Andy Layne Trail. The detour was just after crossing Catawba Creek at the bottom of the valley, where I ran 0.35 miles along a new official path and another 0.45 miles along the road rather than the now closed off 0.6 mile section of trail that used to take you straight to the North Mountain Trailhead. There appears to be a permanent reroute of the trail in the works, so this may change again soon. I still felt good going up North Mountain, although I wasn't moving fast especially with a stop to filter more water. I was moving slow along the top and I could feel my body starting to fade. I started to get worried about the bike back, although after a while though that was overshadowed by feeling like I would never even get off the ridge. Six times I thought I saw the last hump on the ridge ahead of me, only to get over it and see another behind it. Eventually I did make it off the ridge and surprisingly found the bike ride back actually felt good. 15-16mph felt like flying after hitting 12 minute miles for almost 8 hours, and the change of motion revealed some strength I didn't know my legs still had in them. The sun disappeared behind Blacksburg before I could get there, but I at least got a nice sunset to end the day. I returned to The Cellar just after dusk, totaling 10:53:41 for the whole trip.
Timeline:
09:21:15 AM - start
10:48:01 AM - arrival at trailhead (split: 01:26:46)
10:56:55 AM - start of run (split: 00:08:54)
06:34:15 PM - end of run (split: 07:37:20)
06:44:15 PM - start of bike back (split: 00:10:00)
08:14:56 PM - finish (split: 1:30:41)