Sportgastein

Last day of the conference. I was chairman this morning and then took a train back to Munich. However, decided to go with the group up to Sportgastein and take the lift up to the top of a mountain.
It was a fantastic, warm day. Good beer too.

Bad Gastein to Bad Hofgastein creek path

Another beautiful day with 50 degree warmth and bright sunshine. I threw on the shorts for an easy run in the other direction of the past few days. I found a perfect little dirt path along a creek that took me all the way to Bad Hofgastein. 

This town apparently had the nearest grocery store, so on a whim decided to try to find it. 

I walked in a store that looked like a grocery store from the outside, but I was shooed out because apparently they only sell to hotels, not tourists. ha.

However she told me where to go to find it, and I needed to drive there, but it was only a 1-2 minute drive. I said "ok, danke" and followed her directions. A few minutes later found it, and walked through it but could not really find anything I wanted/needed. So I grabbed a quart of Joya Soya, tater chips and headed back to the hotel. 

Signs make you feel pretty good here. I think it was a 23 minute slow jog, but the sign said it would talk an hour and a half to make it back.

Grocery bag in one hand, phone in the other, I jogged back for a total of 5 miles in about an hour. 

Update on yesterday: Suspicion confirmed. I saw an old lady wearing bright red Hokas walking along the creek path. 

I found this pitcher flowing with water, took a sip, really hot.

 

Garmin Data

Bad Gastein, Austria - Day 2 - hike/snowshoe/run

The sun came out today!

Peaks everywhere. I took inventory of my remaining lunches and then plotted out a route using satellite images that goes up the ski slopes, grabbed snowshoes, waterproof hokas, and headed out. This time I grabbed a map from the front desk of my hotel and did my best to follow it. The concierge told me to look for a lift call Graukogel.

I headed up through town, passed some kids on the street that looked at my shoes, said something in German and then they all laughed. I laughed too because my shoes are so Euro, they're picking on themselves.

Onward and upward. I found a sign for Graukogel, found the lift, snuck aroud the side, strapped on the snowshoes and headed up the edge of the ski run. I saw about 2 skiers, then after a couple hundred vertical feet I found a trail off to the side with boot prints.

I followed this up a ways and popped out a hut, high on the slopes. It was awesome. I sat and devoured an orange, took pictures and enjoyed the short-sleeve weather up high on the slopes.

I continued upwards and eventually found a dirt road with poor snowpack, enough so that I no longer needed my snowshoes and could still go much higher.

Eventually at about 4700 ft, and 3-4 miles, I turned around and followed the road all the way down back into Bad Gastein and jogged the remaining couple miles back to my hotel with snowshoes in one hand and my hiking pole in the other.

Garmin data for the hike, 7.5 mi

Bad Gastein, Austria

After very little sleep working on a proposal, I hung out with the family on Saturday until my flight at 4:45 then flew to Frankfurt, Germany, 2 hr layover then took another quick flight to end in Munich. Killed 3 hrs in the airport walking around and then figured out the train system to employ my pre-purchased ticket to Bad Gastein, Austria. 3 trains, a taxi and 5 more hours later, I arrived at my hotel just in time for the start of my conference.

I checked in to the hotel, and was asked if I wanted dinner included with my stay (+24Euros/day). Since I hadn't eaten all day other than a clif bar, I tried to explain to her that I was vegan and hoped they had food I could eat, and she recommended the a la carte menu. I asked several times what that means since there are no prices on the food, and still don't know if I'm being charged $31/day for dinner or not. I got a miniature little salad and a smoked tofu dish that were very cute, but very small. Beer was good though!

Attended the opening talk and headed back to my room to finally sleep. I slept like a brick and could barely peel my eyes open at 7:30 to start preparing for my talk. Talk went very well and we ended the morning session and have a break before tonight's session, so I went out to explore the area.
I found a trail right outside the hotel that heads up a stream. Encouraged, I followed it.

It headed steeply up and up

 Cascaded wasserfallkeg

 I tried out photosynth at this turn in the trail. Captured the whole scene pretty well
Does this next photo count as blue sky? That's about as much sky as I've seen in 2 days. I was pretty excited. However the photos do not do the peaks justice. It's so gray you can hardly tell the amazing glaciated Alps in the background.

 I ran to the next town over and entered this national park with a nice snowy road, pretty perfect for running.

 Giant picture frame...

 Pretty awesome Icy cliff.

 Back into town (Bad Gastein)

 My Neighbor is gonna be pretty jealous of this setup.

Garmin Data: 8.84 mi in a little over 2 hrs (took a whole bunch of pictures and walked around town quite a bit). http://connect.garmin.com/activity/157300893

Pololu Valley - Big Island Hawaii

After a day of conferencing, I hopped in the car and booked it around the northern point of the Big Island to Hawi and continued on to Polulu. The trail was mega sloppy and muddy going down but the views made up for it.

 At the bottom of the valley floor I headed up the valley at first looking for a better place to cross this water inlet. Again super sloppy but ended up just walking through it. Then I found an evil frog.

I followed some trails, grunting back up another 500 foot steep climb shown in the second photo.  I had about 1.5 hours until dark so was carefully watching the clock to not get caught in the dark - although I did have a flashlight JIC.

It was just as it should be, sweat pouring off my face, but plenty of energy on the climbs. I kept running to a minimum to not aggravate my kneecap. After a somewhat unexciting section, I popped out on top of the second hill with this as the view.

 Looking back, I can see my car 2 miles away as well as the nearest Island (Maui) off in the distance.

After turning around, I wanted to push the pace to be sure to be back at the car during daylight. I had passed a few other hikers, but pretty much no one else ventured past the first half mile.
Some of the trail was in dense jungle. I saw few shoe prints, and many more hoof marks. On the way back, I heard something in the woods honking at me. It was a pretty big animal, not sure what it was as I didn't get a good view of him. Here are some footprints on the trail right after I heard him. Could have been a pig or a donkey.

Another 4 miles with 1300 ft elevation. Link to Garmin data

Kiholo Bay - Big Island Hawaii

I'm in Hawaii for a conference this week. Arrived at the airport at 2 pm, got my rental, drove to the hotel and changed into some running clothes for a short jaunt out to Kiholo Bay - a lagoon with no road within a mile or so, keeping crowds at a minimum.



Last time I was here, we parked at milemarker 81 of the highway, this time I turned down a road between 82 and 83, parked my car at the first lot and headed down the road. Found a more direct trail to the lagoon. Difficult running into a STRONG headwind on loose sand.

The lava meets the water.

I scurried around the lagoon snapping photos of lavatubes and sea turtles swimming in the lagoon.

Ended up with about 4 miles with a little annoyance from my right kneecap still. - First run after a week off after tNF50. Garmin watch data