Monday: 5
Middletown, RI. Went to packet pickup for Thursday's Pie Run, and ran the course as well. Temperature never got out of the 30s today, but other than when running into the wind, I felt just fine out there in shorts.
Tuesday: 1 walk, 6 run
AM: Westerly, RI. CCC. Experimenting with installing water bars on the steep downhill trail at Big Hill used in Grills Trail Race.
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| Part of a 3-man crew. Let's see how this goes. |
AM: Westerly, RI. Post-CCC, easy run at Grills with Matthew and Brady.
Wednesday: 4
Charlestown, RI. Easy run with Matthew on Charlestown Beach area roads.
Thursday: 8
Middletown, RI. Pie Run. Separate write-up to follow.
Friday: 15
Killingly, CT. Ran a 15-mile section of RI's North South Trail between Killingly and Burrillville. So why does a RI trail go through CT? Good question, for which I don't have the answer. It's a small section in CT, though. We were on the NST for less than a mile before crossing into Glocester, RI. I didn't care for the early section of the trail, as there was a lot of washed out gravel roads that were awkward to run on.
About six miles in, I was starting to feel weak and so glad that we dropped some snacks and water at George Washington State Park (eight miles in). That helped a little, but it was really my fault as I didn't fuel much at all before the run, given the odd start of 3pm. Once we were inside the park, the trail was quite nice, and for a while coincided with the Walkabout Trail. Once the trails split, though, two things happened: the trail was no longer well maintained and it got pitch dark. We had also stashed our headlamps at the park; otherwise, it would have been a total disaster. Even with a headlamp, of course it's still much slower than during daylight and tougher to navigate. We went through a number of sections of muck and then sections of trail with so many blowdowns, each time that required coming to stop, finding a way around the blowdown, and trying to find where the trail started again on the other side of the blowdown. Brady had plenty of energy left, but as for Matthew and I, I think we were both pretty much beat. Rather than whine and make it worse, we tried to find other topics to help pass the time. I was so weak when we finished, and glad to be done.
Saturday: 8 run, 3 walk
AM: Ledyard, CT. Pequot Trail with Matthew and Brady. One of the CT Blue Blazed Trails. While there were some nice parts in the middle section, I found most of the northern section (north of Route 2) to be pretty disappointing. I don't know what the trail looked like before the current electrical transmission line construction started, but it sure made a mess of the trail right now. To be fair, the trail north of Route 2 is technically closed for construction, but given that this was a Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend, we took our chances that there would be no construction today.
The trail in the southern portion was very well marked with many blue blazes, but it needed to be given that the trail wasn't very well established. After a very short start on a road, the trail turned sharp right between two house properties. There was a very thick leaf cover and no sign of a trail, but there were blazes between two the properties.
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| Only afterwards, to satisfy my curiosity, did the odd start to the trail between two lots make sense to me, as I see now it was on a 0.08 acre, 10' wide strip of property owned by the Federal government. (bordered in yellow highlight above) |
PM: Charlestown, RI. Post-Thanksgiving hike with my family, including my Mom, brother, sister-in-law, and their respective families. Loop from Kettle Pond through Burlingame Campground.
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| Towards the end of the hike. |
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| My niece Ellie loves to climb rocks. |
Sunday: 19
Ashford, CT. End-to-end run of the Natchaug Trail. About 39°F when we started. Not bad temperature, but with no sun and higher humidity before a pending rain, it just felt cold, so I wore a thin pair of gloves in addition to a long-sleeve tech shirt (shorts of course). Left the house a little after 6:30am, but between the drive here, and shuttling cars for a point-to-point run, plus a midway stash, it was 8:30am by the time Matthew, Brady, and I started the run.
We started on the Nipmuck Trail, which I had run 13 miles of (26 miles OAB) during the 2012 Nipmuck Marathon. For today, we would only be on the Nipmuck for about 1/2 mile until the split at the northern terminus of the Natchaug Trail. Right off that bat, I really enjoyed this trail! Sure, it was moderately hilly and pretty slow going overall especially in the leaf cover, but save for a few sections, it wasn't overly technical, was pretty remote away from houses, had very few road sections, and a lot of pretty sections along clean, swift-flowing rivers.
At 8 miles in, we stopped to refuel. Split my apple crisp granola bar with Brady, and also took one gel, plus sips of Gatorade and water. Was feeling pretty good up until about Mile 13 and then was feeling really weak. Matthew was feeling better than me and was kind enough to give me his last gel. Still felt weak the rest of the run, but not as weak as I did at that moment. We lost about a mile 15 miles in, due to some confusing blue-blazed marking in two different directions.
The final three miles were among our fastest, mostly because the terrain got much easier. Matthew had a pretty good gap on me in these final miles as I just tried to hang on. Brady would mostly run with him as he prefers to be in or near the lead, but we would also pause or even come back to me, presumably just to check if the old man was still alive. After ascertaining that, even in the 19th mile, I was surprised to see him still racing ahead and catching up with Matthew again.
Finished the run and couldn't wait to refuel at a coffee shop in Mansfield, where I got an egg sandwich wrap, a pumpkin muffin, and some kind of fruit bar, plus a large iced coffee. Ah, very satisfying. Both the food and the trail run today!
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| Brady zonked out post-run. I guess maybe the run tired him out after all? It sure didn't seem to faze him during the run. |
Weekly mileage: 65 run, 4 walk
Weekly synopsis: A fun and productive Thanksgiving week. Monday through Wednesday were easy runs pre-race, Thursday I had a really good race, and Friday through Sunday we run 42 miles of trails in 3 days!
Weekly highlight: Toss-up between the Pie Run and Natchaug Trail Run. Both great runs with their own merits.
Weekly lowlight: Pequot Trail run. It doesn't come close to living up to the other Blue Blazed Trails that I've run in CT, and I just didn't enjoy it.
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