Christmas, New Year, Antarctica – and FOUR more marathons 🙂

Bags packed, Friday pre-dawn flight, touchdown 9am Central.  Rental pickup in Nashville, 2½ hour trek north to rural Kentucky.  Falls of Rough, tomorrow’s inaugural trail race destination.  Self-supported run.  No crew, no aid stations.  Two 13 mile loops – in the woods, in December.

trick with Kentucky races: START time.  State’s divided between 2 time zones, with most towns built along demarcation.  Left Nashville (Central Time), lunch’d in Elizabethtown (Eastern Time), slept in Falls (Central again).  RD [Race Director] pre-race talk described trail conditions, weather expectation AND another Time Zone reminder.  (Lotta racers from Louisville/Eastern sleepers.)

Soooo much history.  Seemingly middle of nowhere – America’s Frontier States: Kentucky & Tennessee.  Joined the original 13 soon after Revolution.  Boone, Crockett.  Whole lotta history.

GPS set, destination: Hodgenville.  Sinking Spring Farm then 9 miles more to Knob Creek.  Illinois might sport ‘Land of Lincoln‘ on their plates but Kentucky’s where Honest Abe got his start.

Organized 1906 (decades before the iconic DC version was visualized), Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace – the original Lincoln Memorial.  5 US Presidents made their journey here.  Both Roosevelts (Theodore & Franklin), Taft, Wilson & Eisenhower.

Log cabin replica, the ‘Sinking Spring’, & a HUGE granite Memorial.  HIGHLY recommended.  56   steps to its Greco-columnar entrance – one for each year of the President’s life.  Awesome day trip.

Quick walkabout Knob Creek Farm, Lincoln’s Boyhood Home then an hour west to Grayson County/Kentucky’s Rough River.  Sleeping historic Friday/Saturday nights.  One of 6 staying in Green Farms Mansion.  Quiet/big open rooms/creaky wood floors (the originals).  Like part of the board game Clue, 19^th century elegance.  Professor Plum, lead pipe, Conservatory.  Reminiscent of sleeps at the Lizzy Borden House, Fall River 2015.  creepy, SPOOKY, dark.

Early nite/sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.  Tomorrow’s run SUPER close (maybe 500ft away) – other side of Green Mill Bridge.  Miss Peacock, candlestick, Ballroom.  No one hears ya scream wooded deep in Kentucky.  Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick….