Miscellaneous ramblings:
- I decided upon and signed up for two out of three of my big race goals this year, 50K and full Ironman: race schedule.
- Same as last spring, I'm struggling with a marathon choice. Shamrock, with a reasonable cost and possibly free transportation but coming up fast in mid-March? Or Providence, possibly able to snag a free "elite" entry, but it's hilly, I've already run it twice before and I'm not real excited about it? Or maybe skip it and wait until the fall? Decisions, decisions ...
- I think I'm one of the few runners in the Border Patrol Challenge that often starts OAB routes in the middle as opposed to one of the terminus points. I'm just not a fan of OABs, and somehow starting in the middle reduces some of the boredom factor for me as opposed to a straight out and back.
- I just read in the paper that Burlington, Vermont is the US city with the biggest rise in winter temperatures since 1970, specifically 7.1°F. I had to re-read that one and double check with a Google search, as that is both scary and really disappointing.
- My VJ shoes are now working out just fine. I don't think they'll ever be the most comfortable shoe in my rotation, but the initial blister on my first run was just that and did not recur. And man are they grippy! I'm kicking myself for not snagging a pair of the lighter weight VJ Sparks when they were on sale for 20% during the holidays; other than adding that, I think I'm set on shoes for a while.
Monday: 12
Burrillville, RI. MLK Day. With Matthew. Drove to Douglas, MA, at the terminus of today's run, and then took an Uber to the start of the run, Buck Hill Road in Burrillville. As expected, our Uber driver (Anh) saw my car on the side of the road and asked if something was wrong with my car! Fortunately it turns out Anh was a cross-country runner back in college so maybe he understood us going for a trail run, and not the usual Uber driver reaction of picking up a couple of weirdos who want to get dropped off at a trailhead in the woods.
Anyway, ran three miles on a very overgrown North-South Trail to the RI/MA border, before picking up the Midstate Trail. The first mile and a half of Midstate Trail is terrible: flooded, muddy, washed out. But the rest of the run was pretty good, in fact the snow-covered parts were great.
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| Midstate Trail a few miles north of the RI/MA border: Fun to run on snow covered trails. This winter has been really lame so far. |
Tuesday: 2 walk, 10 run
AM: Westerly, RI. CCC. Continued our annual monitoring required for Land Trust accreditation. Walked, recorded, and picked up trash at Wildwood and Flora Whitely Preserves. I never cease to be amazed (and disgusted) by how much trash is thrown out on the sides of the road on our properties.
PM: South Kingstown, RI. Solo workout. Parked at Green Hill Park in South Kingstown, changed into running clothes, and made up the route as I went along. 3 mile warm-up, 5 at MP, 2 cool-down. I was shooting for 6:20ish on the MP miles, and I hit them, but was working and breathing pretty hard. What gives?
Wednesday: 9
Hopkinton, RI. 7th (of 19) Border Patrol Challenge route. Probably not the smartest move to run a Border Patrol Challenge route the day after a workout, but it fit well for my schedule so I went out for the most technical route there is: Narragansett Trail (from RI/CT border to Stubtown Road, OAB).
This is a challenge for Brady as well, as there a number of places where I personally have to use my hands to get up and over boulders, and yes, I do mean boulders. I knew from the start that there was a high likelihood of me falling when running this route hard, both from my past experience coupled with just how technical it is.
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| And fall I did. Similar to last week, my new VJ shoes held well on rocks dry and wet, but did nothing on wet old wooden boardwalks. I fell and then slid for a ways in a technical section of trail. Ouch. This hurt more than it probably looks, and I was down for a few seconds before trying to shake it off and move on. |
Thursday: 6 run, 2 walk
Westerly, RI. Very slow and easy run with Brady at Wahaneeta / Woody Hill. Legs are really feeling it after hard workouts the past two days. Likely another easy day tomorrow.
Westerly, RI. 2 mile hike led by WLT's Marc, through Flora Whitely Preserve, a newly cut connecting trail through the Town Forest, and Cottrell Preserve. Today's group was very varied in pace, but fortunately the distance was so short it didn't matter that much. At the end of the hike, a woman came up to Brady and me and said, "It's so nice to have such a well-behaved dog on our hike!". Made my day; hopefully Brady's as well.
Friday: 8
Westerly, RI. Legs still feeling it two post workouts. Pretty raw day with temps in mid 30s and off-and-on rain. Decided to just run easy from the house. Virgin run in NB 1080v11. No issues.
Saturday: 9
Exeter, RI. 8th (of 19) Border Patrol Challenge: Mount Tom Trail OAB. The legs were not at 100%, but with two consecutive days of easy efforts, I was fine. My time (1:12:03) was pretty bad, as it was more than four minutes slower than when I did this just two years ago. It's easy to find excuses, with the biggest one being the "gutter" (section north of Route 165 just near the northern terminus of trail) portion being flooded, covered in wet leaves, and slick mud. As usual, Brady had to wait up for me repeatedly, with perhaps the one exception being when three large sheepdogs were in his way (literally) and he held back not sure what to do. (They were friendly and there was no issue.)
Sunday: 16
Hopkinton, RI. Solo run on mostly very quiet roads. Parked at Black Farm State Management Area. I had never been there before and would like to visit the trails at some point. But not today. Ran a loop that included some pretty decent hills. including a 300' climb on Canonchet Road. Took it easy and felt fine throughout.
Weekly mileage: 70 run, 4 walk
Weekly synopsis: Another great week! Biggest run week in over two months. 70 miles of running, including a workout, a long run, a Midstate Trail sampler, and two BPC challenges. How could I call it anything but?
Weekly highlight: Running in the snow on parts of the Midstate Trail.
Weekly lowlight: Being dumb by running two back-to-back hard workouts and paying the price of trashed legs and soreness for two days. It turned out to be minor, and it's one thing if there two key races back-to-back that I felt really strongly about, but there was just no need for this. Smarten up!
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