Monday: 6
Charlestown, RI. Memorial Day. First Dash & Splash of the year. Very easy, even slow, but I just felt it was right to go slow today. Best part of the run was technically not part of the run at all: the post-run swim!
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| Love this pic mid-air jump into pond, with only Brady's back paws remaining on dock
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| What goes up ... |
Tuesday: 10 run, 2 walk
Westerly, RI. With heat and humidity, I knew I "had" to get in a run early, before CCC, if I were to get in a run at all. I originally mapped out a 16-miler, but that wasn't going to work timewise, and now in hindsight, it wasn't going to work at all for me with the weather. Temperature was "only" 67° but combined with a humidity of 90% and my lack of any acclimation this early in the season, it sure felt much hotter.
Picked a route I had never run before, a loop from Weekapaug up moderately busy roads and back on a combination of trail (Woody Hill) and super quiet roads. Running past the Bousquet house, I took full advantage of a hose that Shara was using for watering. I was parched and doused myself. Was relieved to arrive back at Weekapaug Breachway and finish the run. While I ran sub-7, barely, it wasn't easy and I felt pretty awful. The price I had to pay was post-run and I just felt tired and weak for the rest of the whole day.
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Westerly, RI. 2 miles walking during CCC, refreshing blazes on the perimeter trail.
Wednesday: 4
Westerly, RI. First week of the 47th annual Tom McCoy Family Fun Runs. Unfortunately Tommy informed me that at age 85, this is the first year he won't be joining us, which I regret but understand, and the show must go on.
We had 15 children show up for the kids' run and 72 for the 1K / 5K. Not bad for the first week. I had planned to run it relatively easy, but when the first few runners took it out hard right off the line, the competitive nature in me threw my plans out the window. Game on! Dave led out but was soon passed by a guy that I didn't recognize. By the end of the first mile (5:48 for me), I had been passed by two more runners (a McLaughlin and Brandon Tallardy) and I feared more were soon to follow.
Very shortly thereafter, my luck changed as I re-passed those two and catapulted back into 3rd. I know that's all kind of meaningless in a fun run, but it's helpful to have some goal to chase. It's not that I picked it up in the 2nd mile, but rather that the other two slowed down more than me. Dave passed the mystery guy and I caught up to him at the end of Mile 2, despite my slowing to 6:01. The guy told me "Good work" as I went passed, and I wasn't confident he wouldn't come back after to me, so I actually picked up back in Mile 3 (5:51) and finished 2nd in 18:34. While the cool weather helped, I'm pretty happy with that.
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| Team WTAC at Fun Run Week #1 |
Thursday: 10
West Greenwich, RI. Hill workout on Plain Meetinghouse Road. After a "warm up" on a hilly trail, we were after it: 5 x 300' hill. I kept the first four climbs in a pretty tight range of 8:47-8:56 pace, and then on the fifth and final I went as close to all out as I could with an 8:34 pace.
We were originally going to run six, but cut it down to five and instead added one hard downhill. Surprisingly, I held my own on the uphills. We had a little break for the final downhill, so I went over to speak to the man that spreading mulch on his property on the "course". He had yelled out to me during my workout, but I couldn't quite make out what he said. When I stopped, he said he was really impressed with how many times I had run up the hill. He asked me my age (I'm 57 vs his 59) and said that he really missed running but had to give it up due to some type of injury.
Final downhill on the same 3/4 mile segment with a 300' loss: 3:15 (4:36 pace).
Friday: 8
Westerly, RI. Grills with Brady and Matthew. May be the last run here until fall, as both the overgrowth and ticks are getting bad.
Saturday: 7 run, 2 walk
Charlestown, RI. "Trust Me, You'll Love It" trail race. Write-up to follow. I'm getting pretty behind on blog. :(
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Philadelphia, PA. 2+ mile walking in fairly large airport, killing time on delayed connector flight to visit my son Mark. The flight ended up being about 3 hours late, which killed our dinner plans and reservations in Tampa that Mark had made.
Sunday: 17
Hillsborough County, FL. (Just outside of Tampa.) I'm down in Florida for a few days to help Mark move out of his current apartment and to Atlanta, as he's switched jobs and gotten a big bump in pay and benefits.
Today is mostly a down day for me before meeting up with an old high school friend and Florida transplant for dinner. Planned out a route almost exclusively on trails, by linking together several different trail and park systems. Parked at Trout Creek Park and paid the $2 parking fee. Quite reasonable, and the self-ticketing machines take credit cards, so all worked well.
80° and sunny at start, with 85% humidity. Knowing the weather, I had brought my hydration pack and loaded it with ice from the hotel and then filled the rest of the 2-liter bladder with cold water. Picked up some salty trail mix as well, and put that in my pack. Fortunately, most of the run was under a dense tree canopy, as when I popped out into the open sun on a few occasions, I felt I was just baking out there.
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| Starting location of today's run |
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| And start of the run itself. |
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| Very different vegetation along the trail. We're not in New England anymore! |
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| Some of the trails were MTB. While all or at least most of the trails were marked, I couldn't remember the pre-planned route by trail name. |
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| Instead, I had created and downloaded my route to my watch, and used the awesome navigation feature of the Fenix 5 Plus. (Here the watched beeped, and is telling me I have a left hand turn coming up in 168', as well as showing where I am [the blue chevron] and the trail overlays.) |
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| These sections were brutally hot. |
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| More cool vegetation along the trail. |
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| There is an alligator lurking among the lily pads here adjacent to the trail. Between that and the brown color of this river, I'm staying away. |
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| This river on the other hand is clear enough that I was comfortable to put my hands in and rinse the sweat and crud off my face. |
Thrilled to finish this one, with an air of accomplishment. The temp was in the upper 80s when I finished and what little that was left of the ice water was now lukewarm. Fortunately I had stashed additional ice water in my car as well, and that was still cold inside my insulated water bottle.
Weekly mileage: 62 run, 4 walk
Weekly synopsis: Really a great week, with quite the diversity: first "dash & splash", return of the Fun Runs, a tough hill workout, a trail race, and a heat acclimation long run in Florida. I even saw an alligator on the latter!
Weekly highlight: The Florida 17-miler. Was hot as hell, but gave me a sense of accomplishment, and I like runs that mix it up to keep me interested.
Weekly lowlight: Overgrowth and ticks.
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