krnaturalphoto's Blog 
This revamped version of the Red Baron Half Marathon has been a very interesting concept developed by our board president. And adding a 5k route has really spiced things up. This is no average race event. These courses are not for the faint of heart.
The half marathon course is extremely hilly. Especially for a road race. I would bet there are very few if any road races that have this type of course layout and elevation profile. The race opens up with a loop around the Corning Community College campus and out onto the roads that then almost immediately begin to descend. That descent is steep in the outset. And continues for over a mile. Then runners immediately climb right back up that hill they just descended. And follow that up with a hilly course on the way back to the loop course finish. And they have to finish on an uphill to the finish line. The total elevation gain is around 1500 ft.
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“Are there social pressures that encourage you to continue to eat, wear, and use animal products? Of course. But in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and ableist society there are social pressures to participate and engage in sexism, racism, homophobia and ableism. At some point, you decide who you are and what matters morally to you. And once you decide that you regard victimising vulnerable nonhumans is not morally acceptable, it is easy to go and stay vegan.” – Gary L. Francione
Cute terrier mix dog posing for a portrait: Willow.
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“In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.”
― George Washington
Waterfall and steam flowing through the woods covered in fallen leaves: Ricketts Glen State Park.
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“What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few—as we have learned to our sorrow.
What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten—that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side-by-side with the greatest.”
– Learned Hand
If you enjoyed this image check out this photograph of one of the waterfalls at Buttermilk Falls State Park during autumn: Buttermilk Falls.
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I have been wanting to put on an ultra distance style vent for a long time. I have been thinking and noodling about ideas for years and years. I once mapped out how far it would be to run around the entire finger lakes region.
I have been involved in just about every aspect of racing over the years. Runner, photographer, course set up and take down, aid stations, cheering, registration, packet pick up. you name it and I have probably done it. But I have never been the one to developed the idea from top to bottom and put on the event. Dream it up and make it a reality. And I am so thankful to have been given that opportunity by the Southern Tier Running Club.
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I made my first trip back to Watkins Glen State Park since the lower portion of the gorge trail, arguably the most epic part, was reopened after the completion of the new Sentry Bridge. The old bridge had fallen into disrepair and become unsafe. I am glad that it was repaired so we can continue to enjoy this park. The only thing I will say about the new bridge itself is that most people who are long term fans and locals dislike the bridge because it is so out of step with the ascetics of the natural beauty that is Watkins Glen State Park. The bridge is all metal where before it was stone. They did at least make some nice finishing touches with wooden railings, which look nice but are going to be splintery very soon. And they “upgraded” the railings in the cave to a cool looking wooden linked format that I cannot accurately describe, but also suspect will require more main entrance than it was worth to make that particular design choice. IE more splinters.
I was surprised that it being mid week and mis fall the park was so busy. Not packed but also not as empty as I was hoping for as a landscape photographer. But when you get lemons make lemonade as they say. So I try to play around with long exposures of people posing with the waterfalls.
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“Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.” – Hannah Arendt
If you like fall colors switch it up from a single leaf to a mountain range full of fall colors: Autumn in the Adirondack Mountains.
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“I think sometimes our young people believe either that government is not a good thing to be involved in … or that if they did get involved, what they did wouldn’t make a difference. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are around here as a nation after more than 224 years because more than half the time, more than half the people turned out to be right on the really big issues. There is no place in the world that is a better example of what free people can do when they work together … I frankly think that a lot of this fashionable cynicism is a kind of self-indulgent arrogance that has no place in America.” – Bill Clinton, 2000
If you like this image click the link to see one of the male Evening Grosbeaks I was able to see: Evening Grosbeak
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This has been a big change this year. Switching from training mostly for ultra marathons to training for multi sport events. Goodbye long slow runs and building up miles. Hello to short fast runs, bricks, and long rides.
It was especially tricky making this switch mid season. I had one big ultra marathons to check off in spring because eI had to defer it from last year due to injury. Missing time due to injury was one of the reasons to make this transition to multi sport. I still crave challenge and long adventures, but I needed to figure out a way to stop getting hurt.
Hopefully running fewer miles and adding more cross training into the mix will build different forms of strength and help sure up my weak areas. I do like that the triathlon training plan I found had strength training days and core work days built into it. Something that was not included in the basic run training plans I have used in the past.
While I know I SHOULD be doing strength trianing and core work and some cross trianing I am much more likely to actually do it if it shows up in bold print on my training plans and tells me exactly what to do. I didn’t hit all of those strength based workouts, but I did enough of them. And next year I hope to make it more regular.
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“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler
Mountainous rock face and fall foliage in the: Adirondack Mountains.
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