I should've taken the day off from work. As mentioned above, I have plenty of time remaining, but instead I spent the day finishing up a whole bunch of work tasks and packing, and had little time remaining for any exercise.
Hike: Since we never made it out to Maiden's Cliff and the ascent from Rt 52 is fairly steep, we opted to hike that instead. With Jana, Matthew, and Brady. Legs are getting tired.
Tuesday: 5
Camden, ME. Late afternoon run with Matthew from Camden Hills State Park, where we'll be staying for next few days. We arrived about 3pm and the first thing the ranger did was look at our plates and say, "Oh, you're from RI. We'll need a lot of paperwork from you.". Since when did being from RI become a bad thing, and by many COVID measures we have lower rates than Maine. Anyway, we had our paperwork downloaded from the Maine state website, filled out, and accompanied with our negative COVID test results documents. Good to go.
We had to set up camp quickly because a thunderstorm was impending. Sure enough, it was raining as we were putting the finishing touches on the tent and we just got inside as it started pouring. When the right lightened, Matthew and I went for a 5-miler, mostly hilly roads, with a steep trail climb up Mount Battie in the middle (in my road flats!) The road down from Mt Battie to the campground was an absolute blast! It sounds pompous to say "I didn't even know there was a Strava segment there", but I really didn't.
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| I don't take many CRs these days, so I was real happy with this one. I know CRs can be meaningless, but let me have my moment, OK? And I certainly can't run a 5:02 pace for 1.2 miles on flat ground! I'd like to go back at some point and really try on this segment. |
Wednesday: 9 run, 2 hike
Run #1: 5 hilly miles with Matthew and Brady from campground. Matthew had planned out an 8-mile trail run to Maiden's Cliff, but along the way we missed a turn and ended pretty far off track, so we just improvised from there, and planned to run late afternoon to tack on.
Camden Harbor in background
Taking a short break at Ocean Lookout,
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| Walking around downtown Camden after breakfast, I noticed this plaque on a memorial. Take a look at the last line "The Great Rebellion". Have you ever heard that term? I haven't, and if the dates weren't mentioned, I'd have no idea they were referring to what we today call the "Civil War". You're never too old to learn something new! |
Hike: Since we never made it out to Maiden's Cliff and the ascent from Rt 52 is fairly steep, we opted to hike that instead. With Jana, Matthew, and Brady. Legs are getting tired.
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| From Maiden's Cliff, looking out over Lake Megunticook The cross honors the memory of Elenora French, who fell to her death from this location in 1864. |
Run #2: 4 miles at Ragged Mountain Preserve at Camden Snow Bowl. As a kid, my family (my parents and brothers) and my uncle's family would summer here for one week each year, and camp right at the ski area. There was never a campground here, but a relative of my uncle owned the ski area at that time and permitted it. I have some great memories here from 40-50 years ago with my cousins, and also the place has changed quite a bit in half a century, and my father and my uncle are no longer with us, it was still a trip down memory lane for me.
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| Trails were on Ragged Mountain (10 o'clock in pic above) |
The biggest change to me was all the mountain bike trails that had been added. All the switchbacks made the climbing less steep, but nonetheless, we were still climbing a mountain and I was getting really fatigued quickly. We neared but did not reach the top of the mountain (Ragged) and then started our twisty descent down. That was really fun! By the time we reached the bottom, the legs were dead.
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| Campfire the last night in Maine |
Thursday: 0
Spent the day traveling to NH and getting Matthew situated in his new apartment in Dover, NH. Bittersweet.
Friday: 7 run, 2 hike
Brady and I ran in the morning at Bear Brook State Park. Very extensive trail system. This would be a great place for a long trail run.
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| Beaver Pond. Any chance for water, he went in. |
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| Some intersections were incredibly well marked with either snowmobile signs and maps ... |
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| ... or traditional wooden signs with mileage distances. And neat trail names! |
Unfortunately other intersections were not marked at all, so I'm glad I took a picture of the trail map the ranger gave me, and sometimes had to line up compass and Google maps location with the map and make best guesses.
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| There were some climbs, but less than the Camden ascents. Nice vista! |
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| Post-run, I have to give a shout-out to Tucker's in Hooksett, NH, as this breakfast was just awesome. The coffee mug color indicated which coffee you were drinking (in my case, green = dark roast), so the staff knew which to refill without asking. Ingenious! |
Late afternoon hike, 2.5 miles around Beaver Pond, with Jana and Brady.
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| Water break on Beaver Pond hike |
Saturday: 11
NH 10-miler. Race report coming very soon separately.
Sunday: 8
Back in RI. Vacation is over. :( CCW traverse of the Vin Gormley trail at Burlingame, followed by a jump in the pond. On the positive side, the deerflies are finally gone for good this season.
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| Nice finish in Watchaug Pond |
Weekly mileage: 41 run, 5 hike
Weekly synopsis: While less than my target 50 miles, factoring in the elevation, it was a pretty good week. This was my first week-long vacation (or four days, but close enough) this year due to COVID closing down so much earlier in the year, and it felt really good to get away from it all for a while. One silver lining to not having taken much vacation time this year is the unusual situation of going into September with still having more than 4 weeks vacation remaining! My employer has a "use it or lose it" policy. Guess which side of that equation I'll be taking?!
Weekly highlight: The NH 10-Miler was a lot of fun, even in the rain, but I would still say the full day in Camden with two mountain runs, a mountain hike, and closing out the day with a campfire.
Weekly lowlight: End of vacation, and back to empty-nesters.
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