Monday: 0
Tuesday: 10
Planned run with Matthew and Brady on 2019 Rhody course at 6:30am. Woke up to dark and freezing rain. Ugh. Honestly, if I were running solo, there would have been a high probability of me bailing.
Got out of the car in the cold, freezing rain. The first mile on Sanctuary Road I felt very cold, mostly on my bare legs, and had doubts of us finishing. In my mind, I was thinking of ways to detour and make a shorter run. On the road dodging puddles, Matthew said he couldn't wait to get off the road and onto the single-track. I agree!
Fortunately, once we got into the trails, it was truly much better. We were no longer directly exposed to the nasty weather and were starting to warm up. Also, for the most part, we didn't have streams and puddles to avoid. Before we reached the Bog Bridge Trail, I had warmed up nicely and felt fine and my doubts about finishing had vanished. About 1/2 way on the run, Brady was no longer bounding out ahead of us and sometimes even dropping behind us on VG, so I wondered if we had made the wrong decision to take him out for what would be the longest run of his life to date.
We followed the 2019 course to a tee, and turning off onto the more technical Sammy C's trail, Brady got a second wind. Matthew and I naturally slowed down a bit, and Brady would sprint ahead of us, especially on the uphill rocky sections which he mastered with ease, and then would wait for us slower runners to catch up before taking off again. I wore my waterproof GoreTex trail shoes, and they kept me dry for the first eight miles until we hit several unavoidable calf-deep puddles. Cold water filled the shoes, but they drained pretty quickly. Stayed warm until the final mile when we were back on the exposed road again.
Wednesday: 11
First time running Boombridge Loop in a long time. Squeezed in a run before a slew of afternoon meetings. 37 and sunny, very comfortable out there. Glad I opted to forego the quarter zip and hat. This is a nice quiet loop as the bridge crossing into CT has been closed for 11 years and that cuts traffic to nil. I saw more cows than people on this run.
I finished up the run, got back to work, walked across the street and back across the state line (Bogues, Pawcatuck, CT) and immediately saw my 7th and 8th grade English teacher Mrs. Bozek. And she remembered me by name! Had a really great conversation with her, her travels, and memories from double sessions at Chariho back in the late 70s.
Thursday: 0
Weird day. After an early morning in MA, had planned to run at Noon today, but for the first (and hopefully last) time in my life I was kept inside in a lockdown. Selfishly mildly inconvenient as I felt trapped inside and had to skip lunch and a run, but definitely better safe than sorry. I was already long ago so sick and numb from the near daily shootings in this country. (In fact, to date in 2019 there have been on average more than one per day. Source) Now to have this come to my town of residence and workplace is just appalling. Mark actually knew the daughter of the woman who was shot to death. Pretty scary to hear of an active shooter incident in Westerly just a mile away.
On a more pleasant but wallet lightening note, the reason for our visit to MA was to replace the totaled Volvo for Mark. While we had earlier advised Mark that the Volvo was the last car we would provide him, a combination of parental softness and realization that he's a broke college student nullified that precept.
Friday: 5
Late afternoon sunset run in Watch Hill, including East Beach and Napatree. Easy rambling pace. Finished in the complete darkness without a headlamp, but since I was running on hard sand along the shore, it was just fine.
Saturday: 15
East Bay Bike Path, point-to-point. Drove with Matthew to India Point, Providence, which would serve as our terminus today. Fortunately this was right across the street from a Hilton Garden Inn, so we were able to use the facilities before our 30-minute Uber trip down the west bay to Bristol.
Our Uber driver dropped us, and we were off. The first few miles through Bristol and Warren went by quickly with nice water views, before a long stretch through Barrington. We had some long straightaways that were boring and would have dragged on more if it weren't for mental games we were playing (e.g., rating states, vacations, desserts, etc). I was getting pretty tired by the time we reached the hilly sections of East Providence, and happy to finish up. With the legs pretty sore at finish, I walked around a bit to hopefully help recovery. Coffee and delicious bagels and lox at Brewed Awakenings in Cranston.
Sunday: 12
Trail run with Matthew and Brady from Green Falls Pond, Voluntown. Went north on Pachaug Trail (CT) up to Beach Pond, and then back on the RI side via Tippecansett Trail. The first few miles were very technical, but Brady just scampered right up rocks, jumped downed trees blocking the trail, etc.
There is a rock crossing of a river about five feet wide, but it was underwater due to the recent rains and snow melts. Matthew went both feet into the water to cross, while I went downstream to try and cross on an icy log and keep the feet dry. No dice, as Brady was whimpering and indicating that he wouldn't be able to cross on the log. OK, back up to the underwater rock crossing. I jumped awkwardly and somehow kept one out of two feet dry, but my efforts were for naught as on subsequent water crossings both went in. It's amazing how shoes drain and your feet eventually warm up, even when soaked and temps just above freezing.
The Pachaug Trail was a bit overgrown and had quite a few blowdowns, while the Tippecansett on RI side was much better maintained and in better shape. My legs were talking to me by the time we reached the dirt road with 1+ miles and Brady appeared to have slowed a bit as well. He was keeping up with us just fine, but running right next to us as opposed to the earlier bounding ahead and waiting. I really like running in here.
Weekly mileage: 52 (this week's goal 54)
Weekly synopsis: Disappointed that I only ran five days instead of six, but somehow pretty much got my training plan mileage in anyway. Two runs on roads, two on trails, and one on hard sand was a pretty nice mix. Even though I'm officially starting training for a road marathon, I "need" to mix up the terrain and routes to keep lethargy at bay.
Weekly highlight: While I was glad to have two medium long runs on the weekend, they were both draining to me towards the end. Thus, I give the nod to the Burlingame 10-mile Rhody course run, even in the freezing rain! A lot of fun running with and watching Brady; I think he's quite the trail runner now.
Weekly lowlight: The shooting tragedy in town. Just awful.
 |
| Finally got around to putting up the tree. An 8' concolor fir. I think it looks good even with just the lights on. |
Planned run with Matthew and Brady on 2019 Rhody course at 6:30am. Woke up to dark and freezing rain. Ugh. Honestly, if I were running solo, there would have been a high probability of me bailing.
Got out of the car in the cold, freezing rain. The first mile on Sanctuary Road I felt very cold, mostly on my bare legs, and had doubts of us finishing. In my mind, I was thinking of ways to detour and make a shorter run. On the road dodging puddles, Matthew said he couldn't wait to get off the road and onto the single-track. I agree!
Fortunately, once we got into the trails, it was truly much better. We were no longer directly exposed to the nasty weather and were starting to warm up. Also, for the most part, we didn't have streams and puddles to avoid. Before we reached the Bog Bridge Trail, I had warmed up nicely and felt fine and my doubts about finishing had vanished. About 1/2 way on the run, Brady was no longer bounding out ahead of us and sometimes even dropping behind us on VG, so I wondered if we had made the wrong decision to take him out for what would be the longest run of his life to date.
We followed the 2019 course to a tee, and turning off onto the more technical Sammy C's trail, Brady got a second wind. Matthew and I naturally slowed down a bit, and Brady would sprint ahead of us, especially on the uphill rocky sections which he mastered with ease, and then would wait for us slower runners to catch up before taking off again. I wore my waterproof GoreTex trail shoes, and they kept me dry for the first eight miles until we hit several unavoidable calf-deep puddles. Cold water filled the shoes, but they drained pretty quickly. Stayed warm until the final mile when we were back on the exposed road again.
 |
| Wet and cold at finish. The parking lot at Burlingame was empty for some reason, but also had a veneer of ice. |
 |
| Brady's tail also had a coating of ice by now! |
Wednesday: 11
First time running Boombridge Loop in a long time. Squeezed in a run before a slew of afternoon meetings. 37 and sunny, very comfortable out there. Glad I opted to forego the quarter zip and hat. This is a nice quiet loop as the bridge crossing into CT has been closed for 11 years and that cuts traffic to nil. I saw more cows than people on this run.
I finished up the run, got back to work, walked across the street and back across the state line (Bogues, Pawcatuck, CT) and immediately saw my 7th and 8th grade English teacher Mrs. Bozek. And she remembered me by name! Had a really great conversation with her, her travels, and memories from double sessions at Chariho back in the late 70s.
Thursday: 0
Weird day. After an early morning in MA, had planned to run at Noon today, but for the first (and hopefully last) time in my life I was kept inside in a lockdown. Selfishly mildly inconvenient as I felt trapped inside and had to skip lunch and a run, but definitely better safe than sorry. I was already long ago so sick and numb from the near daily shootings in this country. (In fact, to date in 2019 there have been on average more than one per day. Source) Now to have this come to my town of residence and workplace is just appalling. Mark actually knew the daughter of the woman who was shot to death. Pretty scary to hear of an active shooter incident in Westerly just a mile away.
 |
| Scene on the streets of Westerly this Thursday. Not a scene I'm at all comfortable with. |
On a more pleasant but wallet lightening note, the reason for our visit to MA was to replace the totaled Volvo for Mark. While we had earlier advised Mark that the Volvo was the last car we would provide him, a combination of parental softness and realization that he's a broke college student nullified that precept.
 |
| 43 mpg wagon (diesel), well priced, certified pre-owned with 2 year unlimited mileage bumper-to-bumper warranty |
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| Adding to our family of German cars. Mom would be proud. |
 |
| Last time Mark acquiesced to my offer of taking my old Volvo wagon with stick shift, fast forward 1.5 years and this time he actually chose this car with manual transmission over two similar cars with automatic --- As Muddy recently remarked, It's like driving the car as opposed to being driven in the car. Yeah, that makes sense to me. |
 |
| Upper right in this display (to right of time 11:17): It took me a while to figure out that " ↑ 4 " was suggesting that I upshift to 4th gear. Hmmm ... never heard of such a feature. |
Friday: 5
Late afternoon sunset run in Watch Hill, including East Beach and Napatree. Easy rambling pace. Finished in the complete darkness without a headlamp, but since I was running on hard sand along the shore, it was just fine.
Saturday: 15
East Bay Bike Path, point-to-point. Drove with Matthew to India Point, Providence, which would serve as our terminus today. Fortunately this was right across the street from a Hilton Garden Inn, so we were able to use the facilities before our 30-minute Uber trip down the west bay to Bristol.
 |
| Start of the East Bay Bike Path. We would be following the western shore of Narragansett Bay for much of our run today. |
 |
| Back home in the afternoon ... What is Brady bringing out of the woods? |
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| That stick is longer than him! |
Sunday: 12
Trail run with Matthew and Brady from Green Falls Pond, Voluntown. Went north on Pachaug Trail (CT) up to Beach Pond, and then back on the RI side via Tippecansett Trail. The first few miles were very technical, but Brady just scampered right up rocks, jumped downed trees blocking the trail, etc.
There is a rock crossing of a river about five feet wide, but it was underwater due to the recent rains and snow melts. Matthew went both feet into the water to cross, while I went downstream to try and cross on an icy log and keep the feet dry. No dice, as Brady was whimpering and indicating that he wouldn't be able to cross on the log. OK, back up to the underwater rock crossing. I jumped awkwardly and somehow kept one out of two feet dry, but my efforts were for naught as on subsequent water crossings both went in. It's amazing how shoes drain and your feet eventually warm up, even when soaked and temps just above freezing.
The Pachaug Trail was a bit overgrown and had quite a few blowdowns, while the Tippecansett on RI side was much better maintained and in better shape. My legs were talking to me by the time we reached the dirt road with 1+ miles and Brady appeared to have slowed a bit as well. He was keeping up with us just fine, but running right next to us as opposed to the earlier bounding ahead and waiting. I really like running in here.
Weekly mileage: 52 (this week's goal 54)
Weekly synopsis: Disappointed that I only ran five days instead of six, but somehow pretty much got my training plan mileage in anyway. Two runs on roads, two on trails, and one on hard sand was a pretty nice mix. Even though I'm officially starting training for a road marathon, I "need" to mix up the terrain and routes to keep lethargy at bay.
Weekly highlight: While I was glad to have two medium long runs on the weekend, they were both draining to me towards the end. Thus, I give the nod to the Burlingame 10-mile Rhody course run, even in the freezing rain! A lot of fun running with and watching Brady; I think he's quite the trail runner now.
Weekly lowlight: The shooting tragedy in town. Just awful.
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