Monday: 0
Memorial Day.
Tuesday: 6
Late afternoon at Ninigret w/ Matthew and Brady. Easy grass/bike path mix.
Wednesday: 8
AM: 5 easy at Grills, checking out terrain to include and terrain to avoid on my inaugural WLT hike that I'm leading tomorrow.
PM: 3. Fun Run - Week #1. Over 100 runners came out, making this the biggest Fun Run since before the pandemic. And it was great to bring back the Children's runs!
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| After being cancelled last year due to COVID requirements, Children's Runs are back! |
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| Start of the 5K and 1-Mile: Twenty per wave this year (up from 10) and masks no longer required! Great to see some normalcy. |
My own time was 18:38. A few fast guys, including Matthew, went out ahead, and then I was with Nick, Dave, Chris, and Tommy at start. When talking just before the start, the consensus was that they were NOT going out fast. OK, good. The pace for the first 1/2 mile was about 5:30. So much for not going out fast! I let the group know this was too spicy for me and then bid them adieu as I dropped back.
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| A couple years back, we added the start/finish WTAC flags, and this year's addition was a timing clock! --- With the demise of SNERRO timing our free events or any RI events at all, this should come in handy. |
Mile splits: 5:38 (yeah, too fast for me), 5:58, 5:44. In the 3rd mile, Chris and Tommy came back to me. Chris ran with me for the final 3/4 mile to the finish. He seemed to be talking easily, while everything from me was a series of grunts between my panting. While I was not looking to run this fast of a pace, in hindsight, I'm pretty happy with this! All three miles were sub-6 and this was my fastest time in 4 years, 8/9/2017 with a time of 18:26 to be exact. (I'm such a geek!) This of course leads me to ponder whether I can beat that time this summer, but I also need to factor in the reality that the temps were a favorable 65° and cloudy this evening, which may not be soon repeated.
Two quick Fun Run octogenarian side notes:
- Fun Run namesake Tommy McCoy called me after a couple of days later, and said he simply forgot the date, but plans to be there next week. (I was expecting to see him, so glad no issue.)
- Was really glad to see and catch up with Jim Cotton, who owns the house at the finish line (corner of Elmwood and Collins). He lives full time in NC now, so I don't see him often, but recognized him right away. A former runner himself, I was impressed that at age 83 that he walks 250 miles per month! He looks fitter than many people 20 years his younger. He hung around for the run and came back afterwards to ask about my time and had some very nice things to say. Most comforting was that he loves the Fun Runs, he said that runners are always welcome in his yard, and if anyone (including his weekly summer tenants) ever give us an issue, to give him a call (he left me his phone number and e-mail). What a class act! I wish I had the forethought to have asked someone to get a picture of the two of us.
Thursday: 10
North South Trail - southernmost 10 miles, with Matthew and Brady. Starting on Kings Factory Road at the Carter Preserve trailhead, we ran 1.5 miles on road, 7 miles on trails, and then another 1.5 miles on roads down to the ocean. I felt pretty good during the run, but sore at night when I woke up, and rolled out and took some "Vitamin I".
I periodically contemplate running the full North South Trail, from the MA border in Buck Hill Management Area down to the ocean (78 miles). The detractor isn't so much the distance as it is the amount of paved roads that constitute the trail.
Friday: 5
Easy late afternoon run from Kettle Pond in Charlestown with Matthew and Brady. Or at least it should've been easy, but I was just dead. Low energy and just felt sluggish. Not sure if any of that was due to soreness from yesterday's run, or the 95% humidity today, or maybe a combination of both. Matthew continued on for 7 miles, but I just didn't have it in me today.
Saturday: 8
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Ain't this guy a beauty? Thanks to Nick for spotting him post run.
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| Decent size group came out for our June run |
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| Afternoon breaks between yard work: His frisbee catch rate isn't very high, but he's getting better! |
Sunday: 9
Two weeks from today until Mount Washington Road Race, of which I am unprepared. The solution is obviously to run more hills, and I was afforded and considered an opportunity that Matthew offered: a 17 mile run in NY mountains, with over 4,000' of elevation gain. Two factors led me to bow out: 1) total 7 hours in the car round-trip, as I am behind in my yard work and this would've killed the day, 2) more importantly, high temps (90+° away from the coast) and high humidity; this would've killed me.
Instead, planned out about a 10-mile run in Burlingame, including several hill repeats of "Driftwood Drive Climb", a 1/2 mile climb of about 150', and which is actually a dirt road segment auto-created by Strava as that road is more than a mile away. After running the hill just once, I was feeling the heat and humidity and Brady was panting hard, so decided to bag it and run the rest of the run easy.
Weekly mileage: 46
Weekly synopsis: Not a bad running week at all. Pleasantly surprised to run a relatively fast Fun Run 5K. It was good to have one weekend free from racing, as the next three weekends I'm booked and it's easy to burn out. The good news is racing is back!
Weekly highlight: Return of the summer Fun Runs! Unlike last year's COVID shortened season, we have 10 full weeks, and will almost no restrictions!
Weekly lowlight: Return of the heat and humidity. Glad that I live in a coastal town that is 10-15 degrees cooler than many interior sections, including not only Providence, but oddly interior NH and VT, but even the heat and humidity in coastal RI is a still too much for me. Call me weird, but I'm just much happier running at 45° than I am at 80°.
I wouldn't worry too much about the hill work at this point with Washington only two weeks away. Prepare for the suffering!
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