Monday: 7
Sutton, Quebec, Canada. Often Mondays are a day off for me, and that would make good sense after yesterday's half-marathon race. But I'm up here in Canada on vacation, and oddly while I was very sore after Pumpkins 8K, I'm not really sore today after Vermont City Half Marathon, so let's do it!
Had planned to run a paved rail trail in town for an easy recovery, but woke up to a cold rain and wind, and decided I didn't want to be exposed to the elements, and opted for a trail run instead. After some research online, including buying a ticket online, headed to the nearby Parc d'Environnement Naturel de Sutton ("Parc Sutton" or "PENS" for short) with Brady.
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| Check out the "trail conditions"! Definitely bringing a pair of trail shoes with good lugs today. And how about that high?! (39°F) Shorts for sure, but between the rain and cold opted for a lightweight hat and light pair of gloves, as well as a quarter-zip. |
The instructions in the e-mailed receipt indicated to show my receipt to the employee a the ticket booth, but I figured there would be nobody there given a Monday and dreary conditions. I would be wrong! As I walked up to the hut with Brady, an older gentlemen looked at the two of us and I'm thinking he's got me pegged for a rookie being out here in shorts in these elements. I show him my receipt, and he politely asks me a few questions to gauge if I have any idea what I'm prepared for (such as where am I headed, how to get there, etc). I show my downloaded trail map from their site, explain the route that I'm taking and that I have it downloaded the route to my watch for turn-by-turn navigation. He says it looks like I've done my homework, and the route I've chosen allows dogs for the entirety, that I appear to be quite fit, and he says normally the ~11km route I've chosen takes about 4 hours, but he guesses correctly that we're going to run the route and he thinks I can do it in about 3 hours or just less.
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| Just CAD$8 for the ticket, or what's left of it after the wet conditions. |
Off we go! Pictorial overview:
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| Cold rain at the start. Great trail signs at major intersections, with maps and distances in kilometers. |
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| As we started to gain elevation (the first ascent was 1,100'), the precipitation turned to mixed rain/snow (look at Brady's coat) and then all snow. |
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| First of two lakes we visited today: Lac Sprague (not much view in this weather) |
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| As we climbed further up, the snow was sticking to the ground and trees (and Brady!), and it was quite pretty. |
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| Descending down to the second lake (Lac Mohawk), it changed back to rain. Had to slosh through some very cold puddles and stream crossings; wish I had brought my heavier waterproof shoes today. --- Brady actually jumped into the lake, put his head under the water, and fished out that "stick" in front of him that he's playing with. |
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| Climbing back up, the snow intensifies. Unfortunately, I can no longer read the directions, and the sign is too high for me to wipe clear. Fortunately, I had preloaded the route onto my watch and was using navigation as well. I can't imagine getting lost out here. I was fine as long as I kept moving, but every time I stopped, in shorts and soaking wet shoes and socks right around freezing, well it felt a little chilly. |
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| Snow really accumulating here. |
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| Look at the location shown here at top: Burlington, USA (i/o Burlington, Vermont) |
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| And conversely, this one shows: Sutton, Quebec (but no mention of Canada) |
You learn something new every day, and it turns out that Strava will show the state/province only IF you are physically in the country of the activity while viewing it, otherwise it will just show the "foreign" country, which is odd in this case as there are multiple Burlingtons in the USA. (When I returned to USA the next day, the views above had flipped to "Burlington, Vermont" and "Sutton, Canada", respectively.) With Canada being the 2nd largest country in the world, I'd really prefer to see town/city, state/province, country (e.g., Sutton, Quebec, Canada).
Tuesday: 0
Woke up in my final day in Canada to another day of cold rain, with a side of strong winds. That, coupled with having just run two hard days in a row, made my decision easy to literally pack it in, check out of the condo, and head home.
Crossing the US border was super easy. No request for vaccine cards or COVID test results (only because we are returning home) and no inspection of vehicle contents. The border official seemed confused on why we would cross the border when it's not summer, it's not yet ski season, and the foliage has passed. I contemplated answering well, actually, we were already in this area because we went to Burlington, Vermont, for the half-marathon there, not that I signed up for a half-marathon, but it was changed from a marathon to a half-marathon, and since we were already here, we availed ourselves of "free" lodging available to us in nearby Sutton. As to why we had free lodging, ... [yeah, I just ended up answering that we were up here for rest and relaxation]
The only question from the border official that really tripped me up was when I thought I heard, "Is the beast American?". Huh? I asked him if he could repeat the question, and he said, "the beast - is it American or Canadian?". Oh, he did indeed say the beast. Strange. "He's American. I have his dog license and his Rabies vaccination card if you would like to see them.". "No, I'll take your word for it. He is fine to cross the border."
Wednesday: 6
Back home. Back to work [sigh]. Strong nor'eastern overnight, so once the winds died down, I got out onto the Grills course, or at least the 10K portion (Westerly side). Pretty good shape overall. Two medium sized blowdowns completely blocking the blue trail will have to be taken out. Other blowdowns we can run around, except for one on the racetrack course, but that is a big trunk and I just don't have time to get way out there with a chainsaw in the next day, so that one will have to stay. I put a few markers up and over the fallen tree trunk - it's a trail race, right?!
Thursday: 3
Pretty pathetic mileage today, but it was all about Grills prep. One hour marking the course:
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| Typical marking we do at trail intersections. |
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| Extra flags where there isn't an established trail (this is a short section going around a new blowdown) |
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| And extra marking with caution tape at a wide 4-way intersection to reduce confusion as runners will eventually run all four trails here. |
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| This is the first time I have owned a four-wheel drive car, and the first time I've driven back here (it's behind a locked gate, but obviously I had permission and was given a key). This was the only part I was apprehensive about, as the river is deep and the bank drops down. I got rutted in mud a bit (as you can see), but otherwise really no problem. |
And then one hour taking down blowdowns from this week's storm:
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| This one wasn't bad at all, and went quite quickly. |
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| This one was a bear, as I hadn't realized how many many intertwined branches were in there from two different trees. And as you can see, I'm so glad I brought two chainsaws, because as much I tried, inevitably I got one pinched. |
Friday: 3
Met up with Nick at sunrise to preview the Hopkinton side of the course and answer a few questions.
Saturday: 19
Inaugural Grills Trail Race!!! Separate write-up to follow.
Sunday: 0
I had unrealistically planned a 20-miler for today. Seeing how sore I was Saturday night, I then knew that wasn't happening, and "downgraded" the plans to maybe a 10-miler, maybe an easy run with RWYC group. Woke up Sunday morning and was even MORE sore! Literally groaned as I ambled down the stairs, and that point I knew I wasn't going to be running at all today.
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| Freak Show at the Walkers? A neighbor stopped by and asked if this was some kind of haunted house, where the kids will get trapped between the streamers? No, it's just a coincidence that today is Halloween AND we are drying out the wet race equipment used at Grills Trail Race yesterday. |
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| Pretty subdued Halloween tonight. We went to a neighbor's outdoor party, where they were had a fire in the driveway, and we were serving chili, snacks, hot mulled cider, and adult drinks. Good time. |
Weekly mileage: 36 miles
Weekly synopsis: Mileage wise, really poor week, especially three weeks out from a marathon. Conventional marathon training would not approve of my running week this week. BUT, I feel like I have to live life too, and I had two fantastic runs.
Weekly highlight: Really I had two great runs: the snow run in Sutton, Quebec, AND the inaugural Grills Trail Race. Because the Grills Trail Race was the culmination of a lot of work and almost a year of planning, and the runner's reception was beyond expectations, I'll give the Grills Trail Race the nod. But the Sutton Snow Run was truly awesome!
Weekly lowlight: Two zeros, and two days with 3 miles each [gulp].
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