Weekly Log 20-Jul to 26-Jul-2020: Summer Heat Wave

Miscellaneous ramblings:

• Slowly, but surely, a few races here and there are starting to come back to RI.  We got our USATF sanction this week for the Bottone Mile, there is a 5K and half-marathon in Smithfield on August 9, and the RI State Police 5K fall edition opens registration on August 1.
• VCM just cancelled.  I guess not a surprise, but I was loosely considering that as my 6th New England state marathon, and I've never run it because it's usually too late in the season for me (Memorial Day), so the postponed date of late October sounded great.  Too good to be true.
• I've been losing a lot of Strava CRs recently.  Par for the course.  I lost my Avondale mile CR at 5:28 pace, I lost my only CR in Texas - a 2-miler who ran it at 5:40 pace in 96-degree heat and proclaims himself as a 2:29 marathoner, and lost a 1/4 mile uphill CR that I didn't know I had in Stonington.  The first two are definitely legit, so I made sure to kudo them.  As to the third, I think it's flagging time:

2:00 pace?  Uphill?  I don't think so.

To give him the most benefit of the doubt, I looked at his "run".  Half on
roads, half in the water, with a maximum 12:22 pace?  Yeah, no good.

Rough week for Garmin.  I think this is Day 4 as I write this (Sunday).  I'm surprised how many posted
manuals, instead of uploading directly from watch to Strava.  I hope this
outage and ransomware issue doesn't affect their long term viability.

I find this image to be very moving.  I assume that the bridge name, location in
upper right, and caption at bottom tell it all.  But if it doesn't resonate,
I highly suggest to watch the historically accurate movie "Selma".

And now onto the week in review ...

Monday:  0.5 mile swim, 1 mile walk
Monday is my typical day off from running.  I've been saying for the past few weeks that I'll get back to cross training on Mondays, and today I finally made good on that.  Swam 1/2 mile at Watchaug Pond, from the picnic area beach to the buoy and back.  Didn't start off well, as I was angered by seeing all the trash left by inconsiderate weekend visitors, and then I was having goggle issues, and finally I kept swimming to the left (as opposed to in a straight line) and into shallow water.

Much, much better on the return, and I was enjoying myself out there.  When I finished, there were two young (late teens?) busy picking up bag after bag of trash, but they took the time to say "Good morning" to me.  On my way out, I drove past them picking up trash in the parking lot, and stopped to tell them they were doing a great job to make our parks clean.

Another much too warm day today, with temps inland hitting over 90° and about 85° in Westerly.  Waited until almost sunset to go out for a neighborhood walk with Jana and Brady, and it was STILL over 80°.  Ugh.

Tuesday:  5
2-part run:  1) 3-mile loop in Burlingame north, back to car for water break for Brady, 2) 1 mile south to North Camp beach, quick dip, and return.

It was time to try out the Deerfly patches.  Crutch had mentioned these a few years back, and I procrastinated, and Steve Servidio recently recommended them to me.  Very cheap to buy on Amazon, and this was their inaugural test.  The deerflies were absolutely horrific on most of the run, so it was a good test.  I knew it was going to be bad, while sitting in the car in the parking lot and they were bouncing off the windows.  Then the only other person I would see bounded to his car, wearing a beekeeper type outfit of long pants, long sleeve shirt, and full mesh head covering, while swatting deerflies.  I waited until he drove away, lest he admonish me or think me a fool as I got out of the car in short shorts and a thin singlet.

As to the efficacy of the patches, I wouldn't say it eliminated the deerfly bites, but it sure cut way down on attacks on my neck and shoulders.  It made the run mostly bearable for me, but I felt guilty for Brady as at times he must have had 40 deerflies swarming around him.  With his thick fur and his on and off sprints, it's harder for them to bite him then me, but when we stopped I killed one on his face and one on his ears (both very little fur of course), and both were bloodied.  Horrible useless creatures!

At North Camp beach, I stopped in full sunlight, as there were only three deerflies left annoying us at that point and no more would be joining in the full sun, I took off my hat, let them land on me, and then happily bashed them to kingdom come.  The fallacy in my thinking of safety in the sun was that they summoned their evil cousins, the horseflies, to extract revenge.  Did not stay there long, and returned to the safety of the car.

Nasty, miserable, excuses of a creature.
52 of them on my hat.  I hope they suffered in their deaths.

Wednesday:  4
Paltry mileage today.  Fun Run only, plus a mile warmup.  Air was so thick today.  Ran a 19:19, a bit slower than last week, but given the humidity, I'm surprised it wasn't much slower than that.

Thursday:  10
Very early (5am) low tide beach run with Tommy, Matthew, and Brady, from Charlestown Breachway.  I tried to Google if Charlestown has the same beach dog rules as Westerly (allowed on beach in summer between 6pm and 8am), but couldn't find anything, so when Brady got up and followed me around the house, I just winged it and hoped for the best.  It's not as if there would be DEM or Charlestown beach personnel on the beach at that hour.

We knew we would have to get off the beach for a short jut out around protruding rocks at Green Hill, but what none of us had anticipated is that there would be rocks on the other side that made continuing almost impossible, certainly for Matthew and I barefoot, and at least difficult for Tom in running shoes.  Scouted around and opted to just return and then add on the second half on roads.  Fortunately I did have socks and running shoes in the car, as did Matthew.

Not runnable, or at least not barefoot.

Made a road loop to finish, and that salvaged the run.  It was a clear lesson that the Westerly beach shoreline is much more runnable that the Charlestown/SK shoreline east of Charlestown Breachway.  Bonus finishes to the end of the run were a dip in the ocean, and a stop at The Bakery for scones and coffee.

Pretty sure Brady is asking, "Are you guys coming, or what?"

Friday:  8 run, 1 walk
AM:  Humid run at Ninigret with Matthew and Brady.  Mix of grass fields and roads.  Got Brady in for a swim in Little Nini Pond at the end to try to cool him off, but the water was lukewarm.
PM:  Neighborhood walk with Jana and Brady.  Only saw one other person outside.  Do the majority of people just stay indoors all day long?

Saturday:  5
Charlestown Moraine Preserve, and then a few Burlingame trails, with Brady.  Best part was going for a swim in Watchaug Pond and once again, randomly catching up with the Bousquet family.

When I pulled into the parking lot, with my distance vision issues,
I falsely assumed the top sign picture was referencing no dogs.  I'm
fine with all the other restrictions!

After the run and swim, and then helping my Mom to finish painting a few last spots
on her house, it was off to probably my first party since the start of COVID.
An annual clambake and family reunion in Exeter, which I wasn't sure would be held
this year at all.  When I heard it was on, I was all in, having a short drive being one of the
few Rhode Islanders to attend, and being a lover of seafood and having a lot of respect for the host. 
My Mom wasn't sure as she's in a high-risk group,
but she came and actually was my only blood relative there this year!
That's due partly to the family getting smaller (the host's brother, my uncle, passed away last fall),
but mostly due to COVID concerns.  It was quite the spectrum of COVID concerns,
with a distant (and elderly) relative from a higher risk state (MD) coming right up to me with a hug,
as opposed to some of my New England cousins staying far away feeling it's not safe.

Sunday:  11
Blessing of the Fleet virtual race.  Separate write-up coming soon to a theatre near you.

Came home and mowed the lawn in another day in the heat wave.  Spent a lot of time outside in the hot sun yesterday and today, and I'm feeling week from the heat.

Taking a break outside, relaxing with Brady.

Weekly mileage:  45 run, 2 walk, 1/2 swim

Weekly synopsis:  Yet another week of close, but no cigar with respect to my weekly goal of 50 miles per week.  It's all good.

Weekly highlight:  Finishing my 18th annual Blessing of the Fleet.  Humid as all hell, and very different this year, but got it done.

Weekly lowlight:  This heat wave.  I am just not a heat person.  We get some relief living one mile from the ocean, so it is very rare here to hit 90°, but upper 80s yesterday and today was no picnic at all.  Two more days before we see some relief.

Weekly Log 13-Jul to 19-Jul-2020: NH Mountain Adventure

Monday:  0 run, 2 walk
Post-dinner walk at Barlow Preserve with Jana and Brady.

Tuesday:  10
Grills with Matthew and Brady.  Likely my last run in Grills until the fall.  Just terribly overgrown, especially in the clear-cut section on Westerly side, and infested with deerflies.  Waded in the nice cool Pawcatuck River at finish (Hopkinton trailhead).

Wednesday:  10
AM:  5 miles easy at Avondale with Matthew and Brady.
PM:  5 miles at Fun Run.  Warm-up with Keith, and then a hard Fun Run effort.  19:01 sounds pretty slow, but I ran quite long at 3.27 going respectfully COVID-wide around the walkers and runners I passed.  Average 5:49/mile pace, with Mile 2 split being about 30 seconds slower than Miles 1 and 3, as usual.

Thursday:  5
Very slow road/trail local recovery with Brady in the evening.  Mastuxet Greenway and Champlin preserves.

Friday:  5
Matthew was going to Burlingame early evening to run 11.   That was more than I was looking for, with a looming mountain run the next day, so Brady and I joined him for the first three, before heading back.  Post-run dip in Watchaug Pond, we had the place to ourselves.  The first few times I went in the water with him, I would get pretty scratched up, as he would try to climb on me and seemed a bit nervous, but now he seems very comfortable, will swim right next to me, and if I can stand he seems to trust me completely to hold him in the water and give me him a break.

Saturday:  12
Belknap Range, southern NH.  In fact, I had never heard of the Belknap Range, but Matthew was headed there and it seems like it would be fun for me to tag along.  Got up just after 4am, and left the house by 4:30am.  We knew it was going to be a hot day, so better to get a reasonably early start.

While the trail colors changed many times, we were following the Belknap Range Trail, which I highlighted above.

Left the bikes, my bike shoes, and ice water at Mount Major parking lot, and then drove to Gunstock to park and start our eastward run.  Well, in full transparency, actually two miles into our drive to Gunstock, I alerted Matthew that we needed to go back because some idiot still had his bikes shoes in the car and didn't leave them with the bikes.  Matthew grumbled less than he probably should have, and in another 10 minutes to so, we were finally on our way to Gunstock.

Here's a pictorial essay of the day:

Start of our run today:  the base of Gunstock Mountain Ski Area

After a steep service road climb (steepest sustained climb
at average 16% grade), we arrived at Mt Rowe, 1,680',
the first of 8 peaks today.  You can see our starting point in
the middle left of this pic.

I just love pine needle laden trails like this.  Very soft and runnable.

Gunstock Mountain summit, 2,244'

Noshing on blueberries on Belknap Mountain

View from Belknap Summit tower, 2,382'

Views and cairns along the way

The descent from Belknap Mountain was quite
technical and involved a lot of rock-hopping

Frog at Round Pond!

Round Pond, almost halfway in.

The next three mountains had decent climbs,
but not very impressive for views.
Near Mt Klem summit, 2,001'

The sign says it all at this summit

Mount Anna Summit, with the "BRT" (Belknap Range Trail)
insignia

Blueberries galore at Mount Straightback.
I must've stopped here for 10 minutes.

I'm getting hot and tired now, at the
penultimate summit of the day.
Looks like our final summit, Mt Major, is 1.1 miles away.

Fun running from cairn to cairn on rocks here.

What?!  Mt Major can't be another 4 miles, can it?  Did I get off trail?
No, pretty sure, the decimal point is gone, and it's really 0.4 miles.

This looks rough.  But I remind myself that I
run everything thus far, and soldier on through
this difficult section of tangled roots uphill.

Mt Major!  Final summit.  1,786'.  Not the highest summit, but rewarded with the best mountain views
of the day.

The cruelty of finishing the trail is that being a point-to-point, we weren't really done at all.  8 miles biking up long hills in open sun with temps in the low 90s was not fun at all.

What was fun was a refreshing dip and short swim in Lake Winnipesaukee.

Sunday:  5
Woke up to another birthday.  The years keep coming.  The Stones sang "What a drag it is getting old", but it beats the alternative, right?  And as much as I like The Who, I definitely CANNOT agree with their lyrics "Hope I die before I get old".

After running the Taconic run two weeks ago, I couldn't run for two days.  Didn't know what to expect after yesterday's run (albeit shorter and less total elevation), so I went to Ninigret for an easy grass recovery run.  From the moment I woke up, Brady followed me everywhere I went.  I really think that after I was gone without him all day yesterday, he was trying to avoid that I slip out without him today.  I was happy to take him, and brought an extra thermos of ice water, as it was getting warmer and was very humid.

Just as I was starting my run, I heard my name called and looked over.  It's Tommy 5K!  And Shara and the girls.  Ran a very short distance with Tommy, and chatted a bit with the family, before heading off on our own.  Very humid out there today.  We stuck to grass today and a pretty slow pace (just over 8 minutes).  After three miles, we returned to the car, and Brady drank a whole bowl of water.  OK, make sure to keep him hydrated.  Took off the shoes and ran two miles barefoot on the grass.  Easy pace again, but by now, I was drenched in sweat from head to toe.  Brady drained the rest of the water from the 1st thermos, so I'm glad I brought a second.  It seems Brady just wouldn't stop panting, so I took him to Watchaug Pond and we went for a good soak and swim.  That did the trick.  I didn't mind it one bit either!

Weekly mileage:   47 run, 3 walk, 8 ride

Weekly synopsis:  Just shy of my 50 mile weekly run goal, but good enough.

Weekly highlight:  The NH mountain run for sure.  Runnable throughout, and I fared decently.

Weekly lowlight:  The Grills overgrowth run.  Just left me feeling gross and very itchy with those weird weed/plant growths scratching up my legs.

Weekly Log 6-Jul to 12-Jul-2020: Return of the Fun Runs!

Miscellaneous ramblings (this edition's topic is "Weird things I saw on my runs"):

• A deer and her fawn swimming across a cove (at start of Groton Fun Run at Bluff Point).  Mayne not so much weird as cool.
• A non-4WD sedan in the beach at Westerly Town Beach.  Yes, I meant "in", not "on", as that car was in the sand up to its chassis and not going anywhere until towed out.  The woman stepped out of her car as we ran by it on our beach run (it was not there when we ran by it the first time).  What the hell was she thinking?  Reminds me of the following:

Remember this scene from Vacation,
after Chevy Chase crashes through a barrier on a clearly marked closed road?

Monday:  0 run, 1 walk
Legs are very sore after yesterday's tri-state adventure.  Neighborhood evening walk with Jana and Brady.  Last night was the first time I slept through the night in months, so that's a big plus!

On the big negative side, Mark called me and said he's planning on taking Brady back to Florida at the conclusion of his RI summer trip.  Nooooo!  Apparently Mark is able to take classes remotely at Texas A&M, so is planning to return to FL, not TX, where the small TX apartment and long days didn't work out well for Brady.  We (Matthew, Jana, me) are all loving having Brady here, and I like to think Brady is enjoying it here as well.

Tuesday:  0 run, 1 walk
Legs are still done.  No run today again.  Went for a walk in the evening at Avondale Preserve with Jana and Brady.

Chasing rabbits on the grass paths at Avondale.

Wednesday:  8
AM:  5 mile swampy run with Brady at Woody Hill.  Seth commented that he felt gross just reading my Strava description:  "Wet, near 100% humidity, muddy, bugs galore, overgrowth."  Yeah, it really was pretty gross out there.  Not surprisingly, never saw another soul.  21 DFKs.  Not a record, but a lot.

PM:  3 miles (5K).  WTAC Fun Runs - Week #1!  Originally scheduled to start June 5, we cancelled the first five weeks of the ten-week series due to COVID-19 restrictions, as during June, RI was in Phase II.  Besides the limit being a paltry 15 for gathering, USATF will not allow any events while the local state is in Phase II.

This was not an easy feat to put on, and was really the culmination of the hard efforts of a number of individuals on the WTAC board of directors.  On our first pass to get sanction/liability insurance from USATF for the July 5 start, I received an immediate e-mail from USATF giving me a heads up that this sanction request was not likely to pass at the USATF national level.  It would have been so easy to give up then, as most local fun runs and events have.  But we persevered, made a number of changes to conform to USATF and RI Department of Health requirements, wrote and submitted a very detailed safety plan, purchased no-contact thermometers, eliminated all paper by instituting online registration requirements with COVID-specific language and questions, setup USATF's required staggered waves with 10 maximum, and finally, less than 24 hours before the event, we received our sanction and certificate of liability insurance.  Whew!

Despite all that, I would be less than candid if I said I weren't nervous going into the event itself.  75 people had registered, which is much more than I anticipated.  Would neighbors come out and complain?  Would runners give me or other volunteers a hard time about not wearing a mask for check-in (as we hear occasional complaints on the about people refusing to wear masks)?  Would the police stop by (I printed out our sanction, insurance, and safety plan in case)?  Would there be some picture on FB of runners not social distancing, and incur negative comments?

It all went quite well.  The solitary person that showed up without having pre-registered was directed to register on his phone, and the lessons learned that we had were minor and very small in number.  Sample unsolicited e-mail comments we received made it all worthwhile for me:

• "Thank you for putting on this race!"
• "Thank you again Jeff for being able to put these Runs on!!"
• "We had a blast at yesterday's race.  I'm glad it worked out well, and we are looking forward to next week's race!"
• "Hi WTAC, Thanks so much for doing all it takes to have fun runs in this crazy Covidtime!! I know it is not easy and I appreciate all the effort."
• And my personal favorite:  "every aspect went very well"

As for my own run, after brief remarks explaining the staggered start process with waves of maximum 10 runners going every 30 seconds, I reluctantly got in the first wave, as the 2nd wave was full, and the 1st wave still had several slots open.  This put me DFL in my wave, but that's OK.  Ran moderately hard at average 6:15 pace and a 20-flat finish.  I kept Brandi LeClair and Dave Goodrich in my sights pretty much the whole run, but at no point in the humidity did I have a strong desire or energy level to try to chase either down.

Crowded 2019 start for comparison.

Taking off with separation, and the next wave behind me

staggered by a 30 second delay.

Thursday:  10 run, 1 walk
6am beach run with Matthew and Brady.  Brady did fantastic.  Completely off-leash the whole time, other than running into the ocean to cool off, he stayed running by my side or Matthew's side the whole time, even when there were other dogs.  This was at least my 3rd time running barefoot on the beach for 10 miles or more this summer, but for some reason my feet were really sore afterwards and I feared they would blister.

1 mile evening neighborhood walk with the fam.

Friday:  5
Groton Fun Run.  Very small group, but just glad to see some runs coming back.  Went for a short solo warm-up, before running the 3.5M route with Matt Sweeney.  In fact, I didn't recognize him at all with the shaved head and beard, but he recognized me right away, and we had a good run catching up on mountain runs, trips, etc.  Short solo cool-down before catching up with several WTAC Fun Run regulars, plus some CT folks I hadn't seen in a while, including Steve S, Bill Bentley, Sharon, etc.

Saturday:  8
Carter Preserve.  Started too late (after 9am), and it was already hot and sticky.  My first two miles were the slowest as I had a hard time getting started and was having a little trouble breathing, while sweat was just literally running down my face.  Just gross.

I figured Matthew and I would end up running separately, but I gradually got a little bit acclimated.  The breathing was still tough for me for miles 3 and 4, but I was able to pick it up just a little bit.  By the time we turned and headed back for 4 net downhill (barely) miles, my breathing had returned to some state of normalcy so that I able to speak coherently again.  We stopped every 2-3 miles ostensibly to give water to Brady out of my CamelBak, and he finished every bowl of cold water we gave him (I packed his portable collapsible bowl), but honestly I appreciated the breaks as well.

Traipsing through one of the coolest parts of Carter -
a pine forest!

At a water break.  I guess Brady just felt more comfortable
to take a break and lie down on top of the boulder.

Matthew said the swimming area at the Pawcatuck River was gross, but I had already made up my mind sight unseen that I was going in to cool off, and I had a funny feeling my furry friend would as well.  That's exactly the way it went down!  Nice preserve in gross humid conditions.  One bonus was that I found the blueberry bushes that Muddy had referenced, and noshed on fresh blueberries.

Sunday:  16
Groton, CT, with Matthew.  One big benefit to local runs like this is you get home with still half the day left.  This was a loop mixed run through Groton Long Point before running in most of the Groton Cross-Town preserves.  Felt fine; went for a short swim at Esker Point Beach at finish.

Weekly mileage:  48 run, 3 walk

Weekly synopsis:  2 miles short of my weekly goal of 50 is just fine with me.

Weekly highlight:  Getting back to Fun Runs!  Both at our own WTAC runs, as well as Groton Fun Runs.

Weekly lowlight:  Gross conditions at Woody Hill combined with deerfly overrun.  I have those deerfly patches on order, and will try them out, but otherwise, constantly swatting at deerflies and coming home with multiple itchy bites is just not fun.

Weekly Log 29-Jun to 5-Jul-2020: Tri State Adventure

Monday:  0 run, 1 walk
Usual day off.  Evening neighborhood walk with Brady and Jana.

Tuesday:  2 walk, 8 run
AM:  Final Westerly Land Trust Coffee & Clearing crew, before resuming in the fall.  Barlow is now open.  The house, donated with 80 acres, is now refurbished and looking great!  Performed some maintenance in Riverwood Preserve, which would be nice if it had better access.

PM:  Late afternoon run at Ninigret.  Too warm, so left Brady at home.  I feel like I held up Matthew the whole way, as I just had no energy.

Wednesday:  12
AM:  6 miles at Burlingame with Brady.  Campground finally opened yesterday, a sign of the COVID-19 times.  Was good to smell campfires again.  Finished with a nice swim in Watchaug Pond.

PM:  6 miles with Tommy 5K in Weekapaug.  Hadn't run with him in months.  Really good to catch up.  Mix of beach and roads.

Thursday:  8
Pretty miserable trail conditions in Carolina South.  The dirt roads were spackled with manure and there was no choice but to run through it in places, replete with thousands of flies it had attracted.  I thought we would find relief getting through the field, off the dirt road, and onto the single-track, but it was really overgrown in many places and we were quickly wet and running through spider-web covered plants.

Carolina North was fine, but after a short loop there, it was back into the unpleasant conditions south of Pine Hill Road.  We took the double track parallel to NST this time, hoping to avoid the overgrowth we had experienced on the way.  That worked for a while until we got into more overgrowth.  I think that will be my last time in Carolina South until the fall.

Cool-off swim in Meadowbrook Pond

Unfortunately, on the way home, Brady was having some issues.  We stopped for a coffee and when I came back, Matthew suggested I check Brady out.  He was shaking his head around, rubbing up against the seat uncomfortably, and had these bumps around his eyes and mouth.  It was pretty scary.  It was clear he was having some sort of allergic reaction.  By the time we got home, the bumps had been replaced by his whole face and much of his head completely swollen.

Now what I do?  Don't know much about dog allergens, but I took the same approach when I get bumps or swelling on my own skin for allergens (usually certain evergreen bushes), and that is that I learned the first thing you need to do is remove the allergen.  Gave him a good bath, washing and rinsing his face and head twice.  Fortunately, after that, the shaking and rubbing stopped, and by evening, his swelling was completely gone.  Whew!  I was really worried.

Friday:  8
Burlingame South, with Matthew and Brady.  Very warm, near 80°, humid.  Streams are really drying up this time of year, with our rainfall below average.  So I filled up my CamelBak halfway (50 oz) with ice and water, and brought along Brady's portable collapsible water bowl.  We stopped every 2-3 miles, and Brady drank the water immediately.  When we stopped on the Ridge Trail (at least that's what I call it) at 5 miles in, he immediately laid down on the trail, so that concerned me.  But after he drank water and we paused for a bit, he perked up and took the lead.

Finished up at the boat launch, where the three of us went in for a nice swim.  There were already quite a few people swimming there, along with several dogs.

Weird day, with the 4th of July falling on a Saturday, no holiday off this year.  To be fair, my employer gave a floating holiday in lieu, and I feel I earned it with over half my staff taking the day off and I had a very busy work day.

Saturday:  24 ride
4th of July.  Just seems very different this year and a bit more subdued with fireworks celebrations and road races cancelled.  I've never run the Quonnie 4 on the 4th anyway, as I disliked when they promoted it as a local private race, and even after opening it to the public, it just seemed like they wanted to keep outsiders away.

Anyway, happy to catch up with my friend Mike B and get together for an easy ride and coffee break afterwards sitting outdoors at Junk & Java.

Quiet (well, except for the fireworks)
evening on the 4th of July

Great night to be outside!

Sunday:  18
Tri-state adventure run in MA, NY, and CT, in that order.  Left the house with Matthew at 5am.  He was kind enough to drive the entire way, and I was comfortable enough with his driving that I actually nodded off for a little while.  Between the drive of just shy of 3 hours, stashing Gatorade and ice water replenishments halfway, and dropping off bikes and more ice water at finish, we didn't start until about 9am.  The temperature was right around 70° and humidity also in the 70-ish percent range, so not bad for July, right?  Filled my CamelBak with just over 50oz of water, stashed 4 GUs in one of the pockets, my phone in another, and we're off.

Start of today's run.
Western MA, near NY state line.

The first trail was a steep descent to the falls.  You can access from either the MA parking lot where we started, or 1/2 mile away on the NY side.  A decent number of people were already at the falls when we arrived, but we were able to climb on rocks around them to get better unobstructed views.

Bash Bish Falls.  To use Glenn Hammett's words, truly "gorgeous".
I had no idea that such beautiful falls existed in MA.

Back up the same trail to the parking lot, and then downhill on a double-track dirt road to get started.  After 1/2 mile or so, we saw signs that the area was off-limits, but we were well on our planned route and didn't have a good workaround, so we kept going.  The trail got steep and hard to follow for a while, until it intersected with the South Taconic Trail.

Cool river crossing early on in the run.

From whence we came.  Oops.

1.5 miles:  Matthew and I had run together thus far, but the old man had slowed him down enough by now and he said he'd meet me at the first summit, Alander Mountain.  This section of South Taconic Trail was both incredibly well marked and rather overgrown in places.  It was so quiet and deserted out there and I was surprised to encounter a group of three people stopped and sitting in the middle of the trail.

Very clearly marked!

3.3 miles:  Alander Mountain (MA), 2,239'.  1st peak of the day.  Great views with a bonus:  blueberries to feast on!  Partially exposed summit, with cool ridge line to run on.  After Alander Mountain, the trail darted in and out of NY and MA.  The overgrowth was gone and thus easier to run, but the clearer circular trail markers were replaced with faded white blazes and eventually no markers at all.  Fortunately, Matthew has preloaded the route onto his phone and at confusing points, he'd check whether we were still on the route or not.  Most of the time, we were, but not always.

Blueberries!  Plenty of fresh blueberries for the eating at the op of Alander Mountain.
Lingered for several handfuls before moving on.

Nice views beyond the remains of some edifice.

Now this is a really nice sign.  Marks the summit, and not only what each part of the
trail leads to, but also the approximate distances.  Next step:  Brace Mountain

7.2 miles:  Brace Mountain (NY), 2,311'.  Summit #2.  A few groups of hikers here.  Wide open easy trail up to the summit and back.  It was only a short distance from there to the tri-point marker of NY, MA, and CT.  This trail was marked with very faded signs and quite overgrown, to the point that I often could not see my feet and the rocks due to overgrowth.

Partial views from atop Brace Mountain

Mostly exposed summit (Matthew in background near flags)

Close-up on flag and wind sock.
Even though torn, it was a pretty neat sight.

Yes, this is the trail through the middle of the mountain laurel here.
Impossible to run through without brushing up against both sides of the mountain
laurel, and tough to see the ground (and rocks) underneath while running.

NY/MA/CT tri-state border marker, dated 1896.
Very similar to the RI/CT/MA marker.

8.3 miles:  Mount Frissell (MA), 2,454'.  Summit #3.  This was the least impressive of the seven summits for me, as there were no views from the summit itself.  After leaving Mount Frissell, it was a short and easy run to Round Mountain.

The high point of CT is not a summit at all,
but the point of Mt Frissell that is at the CT/MA line before
peaking in MA.  It is designated with a state line marker.

And with a pile of rocks.

And here is the actual summit of Mt Frissell, in MA.  No views.

8.7 miles:  Round Mountain (CT), 2,297'.  Summit #4.  This summit was followed by a steep, technical descent that left me rock-jumping at best.  We passed quite a few hikers in this section.  Just about all of them stepped or moved aside to let us pass, except one family of five that seemed completely oblivious of us and it was difficult to get around them.  The mother looked at me and said, "Eww".  That was weird and not very nice.  Anyhow, at the end of the descent, it finally got runnable again and brought us to where we dropped some ice cold Gatorade and water to refill our packs.  That Gatorade hit the spot.  Kudos to Matthew for planning all of this out.

Round Mountain summit

Technical scramble down

 After the Gatorade and refueling break, we were off.  We had a slight navigational error on a dirt road before correcting and getting on to the AMC trail we were looking for.  The trail was very runnable with little change in elevation, and ended up being my fastest mile and only sub-10 minute mile.  We had to make a detour with the planned AMC "Bog Trail" being closed.  The short 1/4 mile climb up to Bear Mountain was super steep and not runnable.

Steep, non-runnable climb up to Bear Mountain

10.9 miles:  Bear Mountain (CT), 2,323'. Summit #5.   Lingered at the summit for a bit, reflected on the stone tablet with fake news, and chatted briefly with a few strangers at the top.  Matthew and I parted ways and agreed to meet next at summit #6, about 4 miles away.  A very steep descent off Bear Mountain, dropping about 900' over the next mile, before starting a gradual ascent towards Mount Race. 

Nice views from the top of Bear Mountain

Fake news:  this stone tablet from 1895 proclaims this spot
(summit of Bear Mountain, 2,325') as the "highest ground in Connecticut",
but that's just not true.  The true high point is Mount Frissell at the MA/CT
border (2,379') where we passed a few miles back.

After the long drop, the trail followed Sages Ravine Brook for a half mile or so.  There wasn't much change in elevation, but I was getting tired and hot here, and it was technical in some places.  Crossing the brook, I was starting to bonk.  Even my watch gave up on me as it completely froze.  Great, so now I don't even know how far I have left to go to Mount Brace or the finish.  Oh, wait a minute, how about if I start Strava recording on my phone?  I can figure out stitching the two GPS tracks together later. 

Neat signs with the AT insignia

Alongside the trail, I paused here and splashed water on my face.  This pool looked
so inviting that I contemplating taking off my socks and shoes and wading in, but that
would have just made it that much tougher to keep going.

 

Crossing back into MA

Coming around a corner in a rocky section, with pretty sloppy tired footwork on my part, I kicked a rock so hard I feared I broke my toe.  Stopped for a while to sulk and had to talk myself out of negative stuff like I'm not going to be able to finish this.  The pace just kept slowing and slowing, and I was drinking water very frequently yet still feeling dehydrated in the heat, as it was now over 80°.  I finally made it to the summit of Mount Race, and Matthew was there waiting for me (for a long 1/2 hour), although he said he feared he'd have to call his Mom and tell her I had died.

15.0 miles:  Mount Race (MA), 2,365'.  Summit #6.  It was a nice summit, but I was done, cooked, stick a fork in me, and thus didn't enjoy it.  My speech was slow, I was hot and tired, and wanted to be done.  Matthew asked me how long I thought it would take me to get to the final summit and I couldn't quantify it for him, but just said, "probably a long time", and he can make a "game-day decision" and decide when he gets to the next summit whether he wants to wait for me or keep going to the finish.  We were running the AT, so it's not as it either of us would get lost or take a wrong trail.

The trail exited onto a ridge just before the summit of Mount Race.

Mount Race summit

Short, steep, technical descent before the next climb.  Early in the run, I would have rock hopped the technical descents, but my legs were like jelly and buckling now, so for the tech stuff, I slowed to a walk before running again.  As luck would have it, my final ascent of the day was one of the steepest sustained climbs, and I just had no energy for it.  Mile 17 was mostly a long power-hike and my slowest mile by far.  I took a couple of short breaks, where I wanted to sit down, but didn't dare, and just leaned up against trees instead.  It seemed forever to get up to Mount Everett.

17.0 miles:  Everett Mountain (MA), 2,608'.  Summit #7.  Highest peak in this South Taconic mountain area of MA, CT, and NY.  There were two AT-through hikers here at the summit, along with a family of four and their very cute Golden Retriever puppy.  Matthew had gone on ahead, which was fine.  They told he had come through about 15 minutes prior.

Views just off the summit of Everett Mountain.  Final summit!!

OK, it's now all downhill from here for a short distance.  I was able to resume running again, albeit at a snail's pace.  Was very happy to finish up, where Matthew had ice water waiting for me.  The last of the ice water I poured over my head.  86° finish.

It was a four mile bike ride back, and almost entirely downhill.  It originally had sounded like a piece of cake, but on legs of jelly and with long sections of dirt uneven steep downhills, plus windy curvy downhills, I was riding the brakes a lot and my hands were hips were sore.  Finally back to the car at Bash Bish Falls, before starting the drive home and stopping twice for food and drink.

Tough, tough run for me.  Beautiful, isolated area.

Weekly mileage:  54 run, 24 ride, 5 walk

Weekly synopsis:  Back over my mileage goal of 50, so that's a good week on its own merit.  Getting in some biking, plus a hard mountain trail run, is all a bonus.

Weekly highlight:  Definitely the Tri State Adventure.  Exhilarating and exhausting at the same time.  I wonder how much better I would have fared on a 50° day.

Weekly lowlight:  Running through the disgusting, putrid, fly-laden manure at Carolina South.