... or is it?
Miscellaneous Ramblings:
Monday: 0
After running 72 miles last week, I was looking forward to a day off. The day long heavy rain made the decision even easier for me. In fact, I never left our property, and wouldn't have even exited the house if it weren't for letting Brady out for his duties in the back woods.
A productive day nonetheless, as we completed giving a new facelift to one of our upstairs bathrooms, dubbed "the boys' bathroom". Patching some minor holes, two coats of fresh new blue paint, and all new hardware, including nickel towel racks and new lighting replacing old rusty fixtures that had been there since the house was built 21 years ago.
Tuesday: 8
Two mile loop in Haley Farm, followed by a short road section and then the beginning of Groton Cross Town Trail. Wet trails, but did not dampen our enthusiasm. With Matthew. Final run of 2019.
New Year's Eve plans kind of fell apart. A planned dinner at a neighbor's house went asunder with her husband taking ill. We went to the annual bonfire at Ninigret Park, only to watch for 30 minutes after numerous attempts at starting the massive bonfire failed and the flames extinguished, likely due to wet wood after soaking rains yesterday. (Note: the bonfire did finally successfully ignite, but only after we and many other attendees had left.)
Wednesday: 10
New Year's Day, with Brady and Matthew. Ran the 3-mile Burlingame north loop, then 7 miles south of Buckeye Brook Road, including the full Schoolhouse Pond trail, which I had never run before. (I had run the portion between VG and Sammy C's several times and really enjoyed that, but never the section west of Klondike).
Thursday: 5
Back to work blues. 3 miles trails, 2 roads, with the Brady dog, before heading in to work for "the man". How many years to retirement? (I do like my job, and am fortunate to have a good job, but life is short.)
Friday: 4
Pretty pathetic mileage. Get it together, man. Wimped out on an early morning pre-work run and opted to stay under the covers. Squeezed in a solo late afternoon sunset run (if you can call 4 miles a run) on the trails of Wahaneeta.
Saturday: 16
2nd long run in my marathon training. This one went much better than the struggle-fest 16 miler a week ago. Roads in Narragansett with Matthew for 10 miles in warm drizzle (mid 40s). Had originally mapped out an 11-mile road/trail mix, including the Canonchet Farm Trail and Crooked Brook Trail, but after a night of constant rain, I figured those trails would be just flooded and changed course a bit to all roads. Coming back on Kinney (about mile 7.5 on Blessing course), I heard someone shout out "Walker!" and recognized the voice as Dave Tetreault, as we ran into a gaggle of Narragansett Running Club runners. Out of curiosity, I went on their club running site after getting home, and see they have Saturday morning group long runs starting at Narragansett Town Beach, so I assume that's what this was. I don't recognize a single person listed as current officer, and was disappointed to see their site was last updated in July, plus it appears they won't be hosting any events again in 2020 (?). I never ran the Gansett Half, but I still miss and can't understand why they dropped the highly popular Super 5K. Anyhow ...
After the road run, I then ran the Resolution 5K "Group Run" moderately hard on the traditional course, and as I was 13 miles in, I didn't want to stop, so pretty much kept going to round out 16. After a night of constant rain, it was no surprise that the Resolution trails at Black Point were pretty wet and muddy around the stone house. Huge kudos to Steve Brightman for organizing this and marking the course.
Came home and took down the Christmas tree. :( As Matthew appropriately said, it's fun to put the lights up, but never fun to take them down.
Sunday: 8
Cockaponset State Forest, Chester, CT. Only my second time ever here, the first being for the Trails to the Cure race in September, my favorite race of 2019. Very, very well marked trails corresponded exactly to the map we had printed out in advance (well, of course in advance, kind of hard to print out trail maps while you're out running them).
Ran Cockaponset Trail (blue) up from Route 148; much of this dovetailed with the race course itself, although it was hillier than I remembered and had some long climbs. I was getting pretty tired after a few 200' climbs, but I got a little bit of a second wind on the way back (red/blue) trail, as it was less technical and generally flatter.
Weekly mileage: 52 (against a planned 58)
Weekly synopsis: Better than I had envisioned, especially as my motivation and time planning skills fizzled amidst a return to work. I'm going to have to buckle down and get some early morning pre-work miles in, lest it won't happen. That's going to be tough next week, given upcoming long travel days.
Weekly highlight: Today's Cockaponset Forest trail run. Tiring, but really fun trails.
Weekly lowlight: My pathetic 4-miler on Friday post-work. Nothing to be blamed except my lethargy.
 |
| [Source: dateandtime.com] We are about to enter the "twenties" (not to be confused with the "Roaring Twenties" [1920s]), and that decade clearly starts this week. Specific ordinally numbered date periods are different as there was no Year 0 (e.g., the 20th century ended December 31, 2000, not December 31, 1999) |
Miscellaneous Ramblings:
- Enjoyed reading year-end / year-in-review blog posts from Matthew, Seth, Tommy, and Bob. Hopefully more are forthcoming.
- Time to start thinking about 2020 races. I've started a rough listing, having given some preliminary thought to at least the 1st half of the year.
- I was naively hoping to finally run Seven Sisters in 2020, until I saw the event registration already opened and closed in mid-December. In one day!
- I'll have to do some research and come up with some additional regional trail races to run (that aren't already sold out).
Monday: 0
After running 72 miles last week, I was looking forward to a day off. The day long heavy rain made the decision even easier for me. In fact, I never left our property, and wouldn't have even exited the house if it weren't for letting Brady out for his duties in the back woods.
A productive day nonetheless, as we completed giving a new facelift to one of our upstairs bathrooms, dubbed "the boys' bathroom". Patching some minor holes, two coats of fresh new blue paint, and all new hardware, including nickel towel racks and new lighting replacing old rusty fixtures that had been there since the house was built 21 years ago.
Tuesday: 8
Two mile loop in Haley Farm, followed by a short road section and then the beginning of Groton Cross Town Trail. Wet trails, but did not dampen our enthusiasm. With Matthew. Final run of 2019.
New Year's Eve plans kind of fell apart. A planned dinner at a neighbor's house went asunder with her husband taking ill. We went to the annual bonfire at Ninigret Park, only to watch for 30 minutes after numerous attempts at starting the massive bonfire failed and the flames extinguished, likely due to wet wood after soaking rains yesterday. (Note: the bonfire did finally successfully ignite, but only after we and many other attendees had left.)
Wednesday: 10
New Year's Day, with Brady and Matthew. Ran the 3-mile Burlingame north loop, then 7 miles south of Buckeye Brook Road, including the full Schoolhouse Pond trail, which I had never run before. (I had run the portion between VG and Sammy C's several times and really enjoyed that, but never the section west of Klondike).
 |
| For some reason, I had [erroneously] thought dogs were required to be leashed at all times in RI State Parks. (although I do think this should be amended to something like "At all other times, dogs must be under your voice command control or leashed") --- After 3 miles, just put the leash back in the car. |
 |
| Brady "stoop" atop a rock in Burlingame north |
Back to work blues. 3 miles trails, 2 roads, with the Brady dog, before heading in to work for "the man". How many years to retirement? (I do like my job, and am fortunate to have a good job, but life is short.)
Friday: 4
Pretty pathetic mileage. Get it together, man. Wimped out on an early morning pre-work run and opted to stay under the covers. Squeezed in a solo late afternoon sunset run (if you can call 4 miles a run) on the trails of Wahaneeta.
 |
| Went to Mystic Aquarium for their nightime holiday "Northern Lights" event --- Fun family event before a nice dinner at Steak Loft |
Saturday: 16
2nd long run in my marathon training. This one went much better than the struggle-fest 16 miler a week ago. Roads in Narragansett with Matthew for 10 miles in warm drizzle (mid 40s). Had originally mapped out an 11-mile road/trail mix, including the Canonchet Farm Trail and Crooked Brook Trail, but after a night of constant rain, I figured those trails would be just flooded and changed course a bit to all roads. Coming back on Kinney (about mile 7.5 on Blessing course), I heard someone shout out "Walker!" and recognized the voice as Dave Tetreault, as we ran into a gaggle of Narragansett Running Club runners. Out of curiosity, I went on their club running site after getting home, and see they have Saturday morning group long runs starting at Narragansett Town Beach, so I assume that's what this was. I don't recognize a single person listed as current officer, and was disappointed to see their site was last updated in July, plus it appears they won't be hosting any events again in 2020 (?). I never ran the Gansett Half, but I still miss and can't understand why they dropped the highly popular Super 5K. Anyhow ...
After the road run, I then ran the Resolution 5K "Group Run" moderately hard on the traditional course, and as I was 13 miles in, I didn't want to stop, so pretty much kept going to round out 16. After a night of constant rain, it was no surprise that the Resolution trails at Black Point were pretty wet and muddy around the stone house. Huge kudos to Steve Brightman for organizing this and marking the course.
Came home and took down the Christmas tree. :( As Matthew appropriately said, it's fun to put the lights up, but never fun to take them down.
Sunday: 8
Cockaponset State Forest, Chester, CT. Only my second time ever here, the first being for the Trails to the Cure race in September, my favorite race of 2019. Very, very well marked trails corresponded exactly to the map we had printed out in advance (well, of course in advance, kind of hard to print out trail maps while you're out running them).
Ran Cockaponset Trail (blue) up from Route 148; much of this dovetailed with the race course itself, although it was hillier than I remembered and had some long climbs. I was getting pretty tired after a few 200' climbs, but I got a little bit of a second wind on the way back (red/blue) trail, as it was less technical and generally flatter.
Weekly mileage: 52 (against a planned 58)
Weekly synopsis: Better than I had envisioned, especially as my motivation and time planning skills fizzled amidst a return to work. I'm going to have to buckle down and get some early morning pre-work miles in, lest it won't happen. That's going to be tough next week, given upcoming long travel days.
Weekly highlight: Today's Cockaponset Forest trail run. Tiring, but really fun trails.
Weekly lowlight: My pathetic 4-miler on Friday post-work. Nothing to be blamed except my lethargy.
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