Monday: 1 walk
Easy afternoon in Avondale with Jana and Brady. Legs very tight; break from running today.
Tuesday: 3
A whopping three miles! Impressive! Not. Had limited time before my weekly hospital visit, so I figured I'd get something short and easy in (which I did) and then run later (which I did not). Yeah, that seldom works for me.
Two personal disappointments today:
- Learned that the Trails to a Cure 2021 race is cancelled. Really bummed out about this one. Besides having planned to come back to defend my back-to-back 2019/2020 title, it's just such a fun race! And unique with the water crossing.
- The second candidate to accept one of my open work positions just became the second person to come back and subsequently decline it, both because their current employer counter-offered. This was after a lot of work and time invested on multiple rounds of interviews, traveling to meet them in person for lunch / coffee, salary negotiations, etc. Frustrating; this is a really good time for job candidates, not so much for hiring managers.
On a very positive note, after two weeks of regression, my Tuesday wound care session showed improvement. The wound is now shrinking again and let's hope this time it keeps on this course until the end. I'm not sure which of the three new therapies is responsible, or maybe more than one, so I will continue all three (Medi-honey, Juven wound-specific supplement, compression on head wound daily) for now.
On a related note, I was pleasantly surprised while reading the paper to just happen to come across an article written by medical doctors extolling the virtues and proven efficacy of medical grade honey for wound care. Who knew?! Certainly not I.
Wednesday: 10
Burlingame romp with Brady. I really like how this route came out pretty much exactly to ten miles, and I may use this again in the future: From the Kings Factory trailhead: Sammy C's => Vin Gormley => Burlingame North dirt road loop => North Camp beach => Vin Gormley.
While down at North Camp Beach, I took off my shoes and socks to at least wade into the refreshing water while Brady swam.
Thursday: 7
Haley Farm. I had planned a road / trail mix with Brady. That is, until Brady got out of the car and I noticed he didn't have his collar on, realizing it was back at home. No, this isn't the first time. No roads today or even crossing roads; just not worth it without a leash. Modified the run and made it up as we went along, keeping to lesser known trails.
Friday: 10
Friday afternoon before Labor Day long weekend. Deferred a few tasks until Tuesday, shut down the computer, and headed to Canonchet trail head at Route 3, Hopkinton. Brady was up for the run, even though this was a double for him (he ran in the morning with Jana).
Temps were low 70s, but humidity was low, and finally the bugs were gone! Not a single mosquito or deerfly bite the whole run, so that was a nice change of pace. I know we're still likely to have some hot and sticky days, but I look forward to more fall-ish weather like this on the way.
Anyway, I had mapped out a 10-mile run on pretty technical trails, plus a mile or two tops of roads. Both the trails and roads were nearly deserted. On the main Canonchet yellow trail, about a mile in, we spooked a woman out for a solo hike. I try to yell something like "behind you" before I arrive to avoid the "spooking", but it doesn't always work. A couple of miles in, we ran through a pretty long flooded section where the trail must have been 8" submerged and there was really no other way around. I don't know why I hesitated initially; Brady sure didn't!
Then we ran for miles without seeing anyone, including out to Southwest Marker on RI/CT line, where I have never in my life seen another person out there. It might be the boulder field you have to go through before getting there? From there, we ran the seldom used and slightly overgrown green trail out to Yawgoog Pond, before running Narragansett Trail all the way to Ashville Pond, then a road/trail mix back to the start. Near Ell Pond, we came up on a friendly and very fit young black couple hiking, and it reminded me that I wish we had more diversity in our running club, especially these days with all the racist crap in the world. But I digress. This was a technical and really fun run and while not intentional, was surprised to see that on the very technical Narragansett Trail: North Road to Canonchet segment, with the exception of Border Patrol Challenge, this was my fastest time today ever.
Saturday: 7
Fun group run with a bunch of WTAC regulars. Ran Wahaneeta course as a preview, and then led a loop around Woody Hill targeting Justin's request for about seven total. I came pretty close to seven for making it up on the fly, better than I usually do as I'm known for underestimating the distance of group runs!
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| Blocking the blue trail, not far from the cabin. |
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| Thanks to Nick for helping me clear this one! |
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| Today's smaller group (less me and Kevin somewhere out lost in the woods!) but always a good time. |
Sunday: 19
Jamestown. Planned out a straight-forward route, which was basically the Jamestown Half Marathon course (which I'll be running in 13 days), plus an OAB to Beavertail State Park tacked on to the beginning. I lazily slept in, and then made my way over to Fort Getty, which is the start/finish of the course and where I would also park today. The entry was manned and attendants came out of the little station as I pulled up to the stop sign. OK. What gives? Then I saw it: "Entrance fee: $20". Twenty dollars? Seriously? (I just internalized that, and didn't verbalize that, but as my father often said to me, I wear my emotions on my sleeve, so I'm sure I had some type of off-putting gesture on my face.) When asked, "Can I help you?", I just responded calmly that I didn't realize there was a $20 entry fee. He said, "Yes, this is a town park. What were you looking to do?". When I explained that I was only looking to park my car in the park and then run the Jamestown Half Marathon course as a preview, he said, "Oh, well in that case, why don't you just enter and then park in the overflow parking lot", which he then explained to me where it was. Awesome! No $20 charge for me, and thus no need to come up with a Plan B.
As to the run itself, honestly, I suffered. Not in the beginning or even in the middle, but the last few miles and the few hours after the run for sure. Ran the first five miles at a comfortable pace of 7:20, took in the beautiful Beavertail State Park sweeping ocean vistas, and then the plan was to push it harder for eight miles. How hard? Well, just accordingly to feel, as in I was breathing pretty hard. Post-run I see the actual pace range was 6:15 to 6:55 which doesn't sound very consistent, until you take into account that my fastest miles were on downhills and slowest on uphills. What I hadn't anticipated was all the hills! I was pretty dehydrated, and several times throughout the eight mile "fast" section I had to fight an internal battle of sticking with the eight hard, or cutting it down to five or even four. Fortunately, I made it through all eight reasonably hard. Then I erroneously thought, here is the easy part! Six miles at an easier pace. It was fine at first, but by Mile 16/17 I was really having a tough time and feeling quite weak.
Finally, with just a mile and a half to go, I stopped for an extended break at Village Hearth (bakery & coffee shop), went in the bathroom just to rinse my face and mouth (I was very dehydrated by then), and then sat down at an outdoor table to catch my breath. The public dog water bowl that they had set out was very close to me now and I actually thought about going and drinking that water. Then I figured if they were kind enough to set out water bowls for dogs, they would probably give me free water as well. Fortunately, I was right. When I got up from the wooden table and chair, I noticed I had left the chair with a puddle where I sat. No, I did not pee my shorts, but pretty gross with my sweat nonetheless.
The last mile and a half was a struggle to finish. I felt like I was running twelve-minute pace, but in actuality it was about eight-minute pace. Changed my drenched hat and singlet (only my shorts were still drenched now) and drove the mile and a half back to Village Hearth as I was really weak now and desperately needed some sustenance and protein. Had a smoked salmon, pickled onions, dill cream cheese, and capers sandwich, a yogurt and berries parfait, and a large iced latte. Scarfed those down quickly, and on the drive back, quickly finished my liter or so of ice water and was parched AGAIN. Just so dehydrated and didn't urinate for hours (TMI). Stopped in SK on the way back for yet another large iced latte, and as soon as I got home, had another 20 ounces or so or ice water and a bowl of cut watermelon. I guess one good thing about long runs in the summer is that I crave healthy foods post-run.
What went wrong / lessons learned:
- Have a healthy "regular" meal with carbs the night before a long run. (Was out at a neighbor's party much of the day before, and just sampled so many different foods, appetizers, and desserts that I don't normally have, and slept terribly. The neighbor is awesome, so not a reflection on them.)
- It's still summer, so on long runs, set out at least one drink somewhere on the course to minimize dehydration.
- Stuff a $10 bill in my shorts pocket so if needed, I can stop at a local store / bakery / coffee shop and get a drink and/or snack.
- Bring an extra bottle of water, dummy!
- In addition to a towel and dry shirt, bring a dry pair of shorts. Sitting around for an hour and a half in soaking wet shorts post-run is not good.
- Rehydrate post-run with Gatorade or PowerAde or something that replenishes lost electrolytes and sodium.
Weekly mileage: 56
Weekly synopsis: I got my weekly mileage in, but kind of in a scattershot way. I need to plan better, as there was just no reason to run only three miles on Tuesday, especially after taking a complete rest day on Monday.
Weekly highlight: Friday Canonchet / Yawgoog tech trail run with Brady. Just felt great on this one, with plenty of energy. Fun jumping over the many downed tree trunks from recent storm and seeing all the swollen, rushing rivers.
Weekly lowlight: Sunday solo Jamestown long run. I was ill prepared, underestimated the hills (there were eight that were 50' or more, and they just gradually did me in), severely dehydrated early on in long run, and felt terrible both in the last few miles of the run and for hours afterwards. Easy to blame the humidity and the hills, but this one was on me and I should know better.
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