Monday: 0
Planned day off. Rained the whole day anyway.
Tuesday: 1 walk, 5 run
AM: Continued clearing of Grills course. Led a team of four, spending a lot of time clearing the heavily vegetation-choaked Polly Coon Bridge, before continuing onto the Hopkinton side to clear "Cole's Climb". I was using a weed-whacker with steel blades, and the other three were wielding loppers. I saw someone had come out and was talking to one of the volunteers ahead of me, so I went ahead just to make sure everything was copacetic (we've had some encounters with neighbors at other preserves that let's just say were less than hospitable). As I got closer, I was relieved to see it was Mr. Cole himself, and I shut off my machine and extended my hand. He instantly said, "Oh, Jeff! Good to see you.", smiled, and I explained what we were doing, but all was good. With the noise we were making and some issues he has had recently with trespassers, I don't blame him at all for coming out to check out what's going on.
 |
| Polly Coon before |
 |
| Polly Coon after |
PM: Course marking for WHS XC meet. Final home meet of the season. Worked with Kevin to mark the course, and then unmark the course, of course. Westerly lost a close one to SK, but beat EWG. Caught up with Keith Ballard, owner of Wakefield Running Store, as his son was there and finished second overall.
Wednesday: 13
AM: [5] Back at Grills. Again. Five miles with loppers, mostly on the Hopkinton side. Cleared many branches, none totally blocking the trail, but for a race they were enough to be annoying by hanging out into the trail or low enough that even some of my diminutive stature would have to duck under them.
PM: [8] Back for another eight (Brady's second run also), this time at Burlingame North. Saw three mountain bikers on Sammy C's, two coming towards me that kindly stopped and let us go first on a bridge, and then caught up to and passed one when he pulled over. It's usually only on uphills or technical trails like this that I can go faster than [some] mountain bikers. Next saw a friendly couple hiking on our way down to North Camp, where of course Brady went in for a swim and then got a stick for me to throw in the water. While there, a tremendous noise occurred, and then I saw the source: a pontoon plane taking off out of the pond! That was a first for me. Reminded me back to when I rode in a small pontoon plane as a child in Lincolnville, Maine. Got sick as a dog and promptly threw up. First and last pontoon plane ride.
Thursday: 11 run, 1 walk
Time for a workout. Was not looking forward to this. Delayed and delayed, staying in bed long after the alarm went off, thinking up excuses. Going out for a trail run sounds like fun. A road workout? Not so much.
Finally, just before I lost my window for the day, got my butt out there and got it done. The actual plan called for 6 miles in the middle at 15K pace, but what the heck is that? Targeted a little faster than HMP and shot for 6:10 pace. Actuals were: 6:10, 6:07, 6:10, 6:11, 6:10, 6:08.
I'd call that a success! Even during the workout, I had to fight voices inside my head saying maybe I should quit after 4 miles instead of 6. Fortunately I stuck to it.
Early evening, after a 7-hour work meeting (yes, you read that right; the only saving grace was that I attended from my deck and the company bought lunch), I needed to get out of the house. Brady took Jana and I for a walk at Avondale, and just watching Brady bound and chase bunnies was the elixir I needed.
 |
| I had to grab a few more cushions, as Brady decided to join me for part of my divisional meeting, until he got bored on one of our breakout sessions. It was a beautiful fall day to work from outdoors! |
 |
| We were all (96 attendees) told to get "something special" for lunch and expense it. Jana picked this up for me from a new sushi joint in town called "Wow Sushi", as in Wow, those two pieces of maguro nigiri (tuna sushi) are huge! |
Friday: 8
I had an early morning 2-hour WLT meeting, so rather than run at Shara/Tommy/JV hours in the dark, I opted for a late afternoon run instead. Ran with my trail partner at a relaxed recovery pace on Rhody 8-mile course. Despite it being Brady's second run of the day, and also being warm (low 70s), he had a lot more pep than me and was out in front for most of the run. I love this route, but was frankly glad to be done, and had zero desire to add on.
 |
| Best way to cap out a run! |
Saturday: 7
Ninigret Park. Mostly on the grass with Brady, followed by a stop at The Bakery. Went early before heading up to Boston with Jana and Brady to watch Matthew's XC meet and 8K race at Franklin Park.
Sunday: 9 run, 1 walk
Nice group of five with Nick, Kevin, Justin, and Bob all the way from Providence. Or six if you count Brady? Yes, of course I should count Brady. Group course preview of the Grills 10 Mile course. So how come 9 miles instead of 10? Ran everything except the racetrack section, as this is terribly overgrown.
Speaking of which, we are gradually whittling down the trail obstructions and overgrowth. Immediately after our group run, Nick and I headed to the Chase Hill Road (Hopkinton) trailhead to take care of one good size blowdown. But before that, we did the right thing by taking down one big and awkward blowdown, not on the course, but that Hopkinton Land Trust asked if we would also be able to take down.
 |
| This is the blowdown that HLT asked if we'd take care of as well. Doesn't look bad, right? But each of these branches are from the same massive tree and there was tremendous amount of pressure being applied, and unfortunately we ended up getting not one, but two chainsaws stuck. Oops. |
 |
| We finally prevailed! Just in time for this MTB rider coming through. He did say thank you! |
 |
| Now here's the blowdown on the course that we actually came out for. A good size tree (you can see Nick, sort of, obstructed on left), but this was one pretty easy systematically taking out the branches first. |
 |
| All clear! Ready to run through. |
Weekly mileage: 54 run, 3 walk
Weekly synopsis: Another good running week. I'm short of my weekly mileage goal by a single mile, but that doesn't matter because I delayed my long run to tomorrow as it's a holiday and my weekend was already chock full of activities.
Weekly highlight: Having the perseverance (mentally and physically) to get my road workout done.
Weekly lowlight: None! Like I said, a good running week.
No comments:
Post a Comment