Monday: 6
Stonington, CT. After finishing up some business at Kelley's Pace, went for a road loop run from the Mystic Y. Temp was in low 40s and felt quite comfortable, especially with the sun out and almost no wind.
This was my first time running in my New Balance RC Elite shoes since the Detroit Marathon. That's only because I finally blew out my third pair of NB Rebel 2s last week and now I have no non-carbon fiber road shoes at all. (Soon to be fixed with a pair of NB Rebel 3 due in Wednesday.) The shoes felt great while running and actually feel horrible in the short distance I walked. Not horrible as in painful, but squishy and wobbly.
Tuesday: 2 walk, 10 run
AM: CCC. Westerly, RI. My contributions were pretty low this 2-hour session, as I went for the first time ever with the building crew for the sole purpose of showing them the next potential site at Grills Preserve for them to build a bog bridge. This is an area on the white trail adjacent to a swamp, and that is wet for much for the year. I did take out a blowdown blocking the road while I was there, so a little redemption.
PM: Hopkinton, RI. 2nd successful resumption of weekly workouts. I had originally thought these would be Workout Wednesdays, but for the moment anyway they seem to fit better on Tuesdays, after CCC when I'm already out there and when the temp is a bit warmer. Way back in 2022, work would get in the way of this kind of thinking, but not any more!
Today's workout was 3 "easy" (3-mile climb on Canonchet Road, actually, but easy pace), followed by 5 hard (paces all over the place from 5:39 to 6:35), and a 2-mile cooldown. The loop I chose comes to almost exactly 10 miles (9.8), so this works well for my artificial run mileage targets as well.
Wednesday: 8
Hopkinton, RI. Ran my 4th (of 19) Border Patrol Challenges: Canonchet Trail. Ran with Brady (he led most of the way). Parked on Stubtown Road and ran in on the Table Rock Trail. I can't recall if this part is owned by Hopkinton Land Trust or The Nature Conservancy, but whichever group it is, their trail maintenance in this area is slim to none. Plenty of blowdowns, some of which have been there for over a year, and a lot of brush growing into the path of the trail scraping up my legs. It's really too bad, because this is a great trail.
At any rate, I thought I was running pretty fast on the Canonchet Trail, but my time of 46:15 was not impressive by any means. Avoided Table Rock Trail on return and instead came back via Stubtown Road.
 |
| The best part of today is that it was Happy New Shoes Day! VJ is a trail shoe company from Finland. I had never heard of them prior to a few years ago, but they were at the Whiteface Mountain Race offering free demos, so I demo'd a couple pairs. They have the reputation of being the grippiest shoe, with plenty of reviews to back that up. --- VJ Ultra - $170 - on sale for $100 |
 |
Absolutely LOVED the lightweight Rebel 2, and went through three pairs of them. The first pair I barely got 200 miles before a common defect of the uppers tearing from the midsole, but the final pair I got a whopping 433 miles out of. --- NB Rebel 3 - $130 - on sale for $69 |
 |
| NB 1080 v11 - trainer to fit into the road shoe rotation. $150 - on sale for $99 |
Thursday: 5 hike, 10 run
AM: Charlestown, RI. Led today's Thursday WLT hike. Originally had about 17 signed up, but as the weather forecast worsened and called from rain, I started getting a number of texts, e-mails, and calls asking if the hike was still on. Since it wasn't pouring, my answer was an unequivocal "YES" but I secretly wondered whether anyone would show up at all. To my surprise, nine came ready to hike, and when I gave the option of cutting down the 5-mile route due to the weather, no one took that option. Great! In fact, it was just scattered passing showers and most of the time it didn't rain at all. Great group and it was nice on a somewhat raw today to have a group that kept up just fine with almost no waiting at all. That is certainly not always the case.
PM: Charlestown, RI. Road run from Ninigret Park. The rain stopped for a while, but it was breezy and the roads were wet. Felt cold getting out of the car but was fine on the run. Well, fine from a body temperature factor, but several miles in I could feel I was running out of energy. Convinced myself to trek on and finish the run, despite feeling a little lightheaded. (My own fault, as it was 2pm now and I had only a granola bar since breakfast about 8am.) This was my debut run in the Rebel 3s, and I love the feel and light weight (7.4 oz). Unlike many of the shoes I've run, these don't require any break-in period either. They feel awesome right out of the box!
Friday: 7
Hopkinton, RI. Perhaps the first time ever running three times in Hopkinton in one week. More importantly, used the very wet conditions (heavy rains overnight into the morning) to test out my new VJ Ultra shoes and chose a technical Border Patrol Challenge course: Green Falls, as it would have lots of slippery rocks.
Pros:
- They live up to their reputation of being VERY grippy! Uphill on rocks, downhill on rocks, jumping onto rocks, all no problem for these shoes! This is a huge advantage!
Cons:
- These shoes will need a break-in period, unlike some of the newer, softer road shoes I've worn.
- Blister on left toe. (Not sure if related to above bullet and will go away, or related to absolutely drenched and flooded trail conditions I ran in.)
- The shoes didn't seem to drain as well as others I've run. (They did ultimately drain, but sloshed for a while before that.)
- The grip does not hold on wet boardwalks at all. So I guess no shoe does?
Saturday: 16
Westerly, RI. Arrived at Misquamicut State Beach 1 hour 15 minutes before scheduled January WTAC group run and ran 10 miles of my own. Pretty raw with temps in low 30s, wind, and mist, but I warmed up after a mile or two. Got back and caught up with 9 others before going out on a run of the Clamdigger course. Great group to catch up and had a good time subsequently at a coffee stop at Junk & Java, where 8 of us got together.
Sunday: 11
Exeter, RI. 6th (of 19) Border Patrol Challenge: Shelter Trail OAB. Parked at Frosty Hollow Pond. Fun to run this with a few others. Warmed up with Nick, Matt, Justin, and of course Brady, before hitting the actual course. I remembered that last time I ran this two years ago, it was awful to end the course racing uphill on the section east of Frosty Hollow, so this time we got this done first.
Finished the warm-up, and Matt and Justin ended up running separately from us, so it was Nick and I (with Brady leading just about all of the way). We stayed together for a couple of miles, and I glanced back when we got to Plain Road and he was just behind me in the open field. Just after the turn-around at Breakheart Trail, I encountered Nick again, and he shouted for me to keep pushing, which was helpful as it's so easy just to get complacent and slow down. Finished in 50:18, which I didn't realize until later was three minutes faster than my last run on this course two years ago!
Weekly mileage: 69 run, 7 walk
Weekly synopsis: This was a good week with almost 70 miles and some hard work. In retrospect, though, I do think I overdid it with one road workout and three hard Border Patrol efforts.
Weekly highlight: Shelter Trail run with the guys.
Weekly lowlight: Running on very overgrown Table Rock Trail. Just a shame that these trails aren't maintained.
No comments:
Post a Comment