Border Patrol Challenge miscalculation:
The duration of the challenge was quite clear in that it was from Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox, so I have only myself to blame for error in interpretation. I was correct in that Spring Equinox will occur on Saturday, March 20th and thus assumed I would be able to run a final challenge that weekend, but here is where I erred:
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| Look at the time in snippet above. Yeah, I won't be go for any runs that day that finish before 5:37am. I'll leave that to Shara and JV. Which unfortunately means that I only have three more weekends (not four) to get in seven more courses, including a 20-miler and a 27. Time to start planning and augmenting with weekday runs. |
Monday: 5
I often take Mondays off from running. But with great snow conditions coming to an end with forecasted rain and temps in the 40s nearly every day this week, I opted to get out there for what might be my last snow run for now. Ran in Woody Hill with Brady on trails with snow mostly packed down by fat bikes and snowshoes. YakTrax Run, with microspikes.
Tuesday: 4 run, 2 walk
After an evening of rain and subsequent freezing, I went to Burlingame to run closed roads. Unfortunately, the roads at 31° were a sheet of ice, and after slipping all over, I came back to the car, put on Yak-Trax and ran on the icy but now manageable trails. Not one of my better runs.
Followed that up directly with our first CCC work crew in many weeks, due to inclement weather and snow covered trails. Worked in Wahaneeta on rerouting a section of orange trail that is subject to frequent flooding. There was still snow on the trail, but it was manageable.
Wednesday: 0
Poor planning. Lost my window, and eventually my enthusiasm, for a run.
Thursday: 12
Afternoon: 6 miles with Brady on the beach at low tide. Sunny and 38°, but very breezy. Ran from Weekapaug intentionally into the wind, so that when we turned around, oh so nice! When I was almost all the way back to Weekapaug along the beach, a person pointed to me and said, "I thought that looked like you, Jeff. I recognized your gait from a mile away" (or something like that). The person was really bundled up, and I couldn't make an identification. Asking "who are you?" seems so disenchanting; besides the person may have responded, "Do you not recognize your own mother, who nurtured you since birth?". That would have been really embarrassing. It turns out it wasn't my mother, but as I really had no idea who it was, I just went with an awkward half-hearted laugh and said "Good to see you [whoever you are]".
Evening: 6 miles at Brazen Hen Fun Run. There were probably a dozen people there, but I opted to run with Bob Gralton, as he had a 5-mile route planned out on roads through Pawcatuck that I had never been on, including a decent hill incline on Asher Avenue. Good catch up with Bob, with conversations focused on our kids at college (both of us have a child at UNH) and marathons past, present, and future. Bob is signed up for Philadelphia Marathon, which was my first marathon. Back at the ranch (in this case, the Brazen Hen for a beverage and oddly but very good french fries courtesy of Sharon), I was repeating the Philly Marathon story when another runner said, "Philly was my first marathon also. I ran it in 1977. How about you?" 1977, eh? Um, no, I wasn't running too many marathons at age 13. 2003 it was.
Friday: 5
Morning local run with Brady. Ran into Winnapaug Farm Preserve. The middle trail down to the pond was wet, so we turned around, but the easternmost trail was dry enough not only to get out to the pond, but to continue to run along the shoreline all the way to Lathrop Wildlife Preserve without getting wet. That was pretty neat.
Saturday: 6
New Hampshire Snowshoe Race, Concord, NH. Separate write-up forthcoming.
Sunday: 10
As mentioned at start of this post, time is NOT on my side to complete the Border Patrol Challenge. Some weekdays and a doubling up may be needed. Accordingly, here was today's original plan:
- Run #1: Run Buck Hill Tri-State relatively easy.
- Run #2: Run West Thompson Dam relatively hard. Although run #1 and #2 are in two different states, they're only ten miles apart and will lessen the BPC burden.
And here's what actually happened. Got to Buck Hill, found it too be all snow and sections with unavoidable ice, talked myself out of bailing multiple times, made three wrong turns, backtracked and corrected every one of them, and was glad that I was able to mentally finish the Buck Hill Run at all. There was nothing remotely "relatively easy" about the run. It took me much more time and effort than I had envisioned, I was beat up, tired, and done. There would be no West Thompson run today. Here is my pictorial write-up of the Buck Hill run.
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| This is how the run started (and ended), on sheer ice. I only brought along my YakTrax Run with microspikes as a fleeting thought leaving home this morning. Without them, I don't think the run would have been possible. --- Even Brady with his four legs was slipping through here. That was my first thought to turn back, as it wasn't fair to him, but after about 1/2 mile, the ice was much less, presumably because the farther away from the parking lot we got, the less humans that ventured this far. |
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| After we turned off a main dirt (or ice) road and onto the North South Trail, the ice was replaced with soft snow. But surely I've lost the trail here, right? Nope. You can see a very narrow track above from about 6 o'clock up to 11 o'clock. That was so narrow that the branches on both sides were scraping up the old legs. |
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| Now where?! I figured for sure I was off the trail here. But again, no. There are no footprints here at all, and the trail is quite technical, so I had to look around for clues. If you look at the very top of this photo, just left of center, you'll see a classic blue blaze on a solid gray tree (one of the few not speckled). Did you find it? Unfortunately, in this rock garden, I banged the knee into one of the rocks. I didn't slide, but at places here the snow was calf-deep and hard to see what's underneath. |
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| Headed further north on the NST, getting closer to the MA border, we could once again pick up signs of human footprints, which packed the trail down a bit and made it more manageable to run on instead of constantly breaking through the snow. OK, finally I have the confidence that I'll actually finish the run now. (It also helped my confidence that I'm now about 4.5 miles in on a 9.5 mile run.) |
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| Amazing how much snow is STILL here after a week of rain and warm temps. |
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| And finally we made it to the MA border. Really neat sign! This was not here just last May, when Matthew, Brady, and I ran here. Shall we go 92 miles to NH on the Midstate Trail, or 78 miles to Atlantic Ocean (Charlestown) on the North South Trail? Neither for today. What remains is a very short jaunt into MA, then one mile to the MA/RI/CT tri-state point and monument, and then two miles back to the parking lot. |
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| Journey's end. The legs are really scraped up, with many nicks and small cuts, but that's the life of a trail runner. Laying down in the snow actually felt quite good, as I lamented whether this would be final adventure run in the snow this season. Tomorrow is March 1st after all, and we've had a great run of snow in RI this season already. |
Weekly mileage: 42 run (21 on YakTrax Run/microspikes, 4 on snowshoes), 4 walk
Weekly synopsis: After a few really low mileage weeks, the trajectory in mileage is finally swinging back up again. This was a varied and interesting week, from packed snow runs to a run on the beach, a first Brazen Hen road run in some time, and finally a snowshoe race!
Weekly highlight: The snowshoe race for sure. After that, it would be the Buck Hill run, as it was awful and challenging at the same time with all the snow and ice.
Weekly lowlight: The Burlingame run on all ice. Not good for the hips with all the sliding.
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