ROCKSYLVANIA DISPATCH

I again go back into the archives and dig up an old blog post after the inaugural Dirty Kiln Trail Race from 2012. It has been a couple of weeks since our first trail race as one of the race directors. I really do not know where to begin. This had been a seven month long endeavor and we have made a lot of memories. Instead of trying to put together a chronological list of what happened, here is a list of items point by point. The Park It has been a pleasure working with the

We go back into the Way-Back Machine for a post I wrote in 2012, a month before the first Dirty Kiln Trail Race, when four friends embarked on an adventure which began a true origin story. The last few months I have been busy prepping for the Dirty Kiln Trail Races. The founding members of the Allegheny Trailrunners, myself, Matt Lindsey, Ethan Imhoff, and Adam McGinnis have been hard at work preparing for our first trail race in our race series. The last few months I have b

Canoe Creek State Park isn’t just a place to run—it’s a landscape shaped by industry, scars, and slow recovery. From lime kilns that fed Pittsburgh’s steel boom to bat populations clawing their way back, every mile here carries a story… including the one behind the name “Dirty Kiln.” My story with Canoe Creek State Park goes back a while. Fourth grade. Early 80s. My dad and I had what were probably the first mountain bikes in Blair County—or at least that’s how it felt at the

Fifteen years in, Dirty Kiln still isn’t trying to be the hardest race—it’s just quietly becoming one of the most meaningful. Let me tell you something about Dirty Kiln. It’s hitting 15 years now—which, depending on how you measure time, either feels like a long run or like it all happened in one blur of mud, sweat, and “we’ll figure it out as we go.” I’ve directed a lot of races over the years. Short ones, long ones, and the kind that make you question your life choices some