Title for today's run: "Sorry I'm late, I got caught behind a couple of skunks" My friend Sam and I met at 6am to run the Pipeline trail in Millcreek. We parked at Burch Hollow and headed out into the darkness. It rained a lot last night and was still raining when we started. So it was dark and wet, though we had our headlamps to help us see the bigger puddles. We ran easy out to Rattlesnake, turning around before the lookout point because we were a little short on time. We ended up being very short on time, but for an unexpected reason. After turning around, we were running up-canyon looking at the changing colors and the low hanging clouds filling in a few of the side canyons under the overcast sky. After a mile or so of this scenic beauty, we rounded one of the bends in the trail and came up on a pair of skunks wandering casually on the trail in front of us. Ok, no big deal, we thought we would just wait for them to wander off the trail and we would pass them. Since there are no bail-out points from where we were on the trail, that was our only choice. But these skunks were apparently dedicated trail runners, as we followed behind for about 10 minutes as they trotted along the trail (I've been sprayed once before and lost a pair of good shoes to it, so I knew we should keep a little distance.)Finally, one skunk stopped on the right side of the trail, and the other on the left side. But they were still right next to the trail. It became clear we would just have to make a run for it and hope for the best. So just as a crack of thunder echoed through the canyon, we yelled like a couple of madmen and sprinted at top speed past the skunks and into the rain. (see VO2 max mileage) We didn't get sprayed and enjoyed the rest of the run back to Burch, laughing our heads off. | 