Foggy 15

Snowman and I headed out at 8am for an early morning 15 mile run. Why 15 miles? Well, we are contemplating running the MDI Marathon in October. I say contemplating because well, everyone knows that Snowman is prone to injury, so we haven't signed up yet. We have, however, made hotel reservations at the hotel at the start line. We have until August 1 to make our decision, as that is when the entry fees go up, not to mention there is a limited field. So, we are on our own self-made marathon plan and are taking this month to see if we think we'll be up for the run. MDI is known as scenic but difficult, so we want to be prepared. Of course, in our typical Sparkplug and Snowman fashion of cramming as much in as possible, we are also trying to finish up our final 250-odd miles on the AT this summer. So, we have a busy next few months ahead of us. I think we can train pretty solidly for the marathon while also doing a fair amount of hiking, but there will certainly be a bit of juggling going on, as well as what will likely be some tiring weeks.

So, back to this morning's run... Snowman was none to happy to be up and out so early, as expected. But we had plans to head over to Raymond to have lunch with my grandmother, so the run had to get done early in order to get done at all.

It was another foggy morning as we headed out from the field house. We went out through the Commons and into the Pennellville neighborhood. I've said it before, but this is a great area of Brunswick. The colors of the purple loosestrife, wild roses, buttercups and other flowers were really popping against the grey backdrop of the low fog, and we saw some great birds along the fields. 4 turkeys, 1 Snowy Egret, red-winged blackbirds, multiple male Goldfinch, lots of sparrows, a few Barn Swallows, and the highlight: a BobWhite! We heard him call and as I was saying, "was that a Bobwhite?" there he was along the side of the road. As we drew parallel to him, he ran along the shoulder next to us, too dumb or terrified to realize he'd be better of turning left and heading into the brush if he wanted to escape us. Very cool.

The route took us along several more of the back roads down to Maquoit Bay, where we were able to see a bit of the ocean through the clouds. We then headed to Pleasant Hill Road and back to Maine Street. However, instead of heading left and running the 1 mile back to the field house, we went right and ran the 1.5 miles back to where we had exited the Commons. Although I was carrying, and had been drinking, my bottles of HEED and HammerGel, my energy was starting to wane at this point. Not to mention that turning off the pavement, where there is no real need to focus on footing, back onto the sand/dirt for the last few miles made me feel like I was working a bit more. Not that this is a bad thing - in fact it's probably good training! I was a bit cranky at the very end, as Snowman pushed the pace a bit in the last mile or so, and I would probably have been just as happy to slow down a bit :-) But again, good training.

The skies opened up for a quick soaking just as we were running through the last Bowdoin fields, but it felt good. We were already soaked with sweat, so a bit more water didn't hurt!

Despite feeling a bit tired in the last few miles, it was a great run, and good to know that we can crank out 15 miles without too much trouble at this time in the summer. According to Snowman's calculations on mapmyrun.com, the route was 15.01 miles, so we were right on, and finished in 2:13:00.

After a quick shower and homemade breakfast sandwich, we headed to Wild Oats to pick up some sandwiches and dessert for lunch with Mim. Yum! A good treat after a good run :-)