Weekend of Fun at Wolfe's Neck

This was the 5th annual Bowdoin Recompense camping weekend, and yet again, it was a ton of fun to catch up with friends, go running on the trails and roads we used to run on in college, hang out around the fire, laugh, talk, drink, eat, explore the beach, let the kids run wild and in general, have a great time together! Most of the time, the phone was tucked away but I did get a few good captures of the weekend :)

Sam kicked off the long weekend with camp carnival, her last day at Y camp, and arrived at the campground with this fun face painting! :)

Campsite view

Walk along the beach just before sunset

Low tide

Great Blue Heron in the still waters

Adam taking it all in

This wake-up view is none too shabby ;)

Had a great 16 mile road/trail run with friends on Saturday morning, and Ryan was even able to join in for the final 10 miles!

Wolfe's Neck view

Cool view out into South Freeport harbor along the Wolfe's Neck trails

Not too bad of a running route view!

After lunch, Doug, Nate, Shannon and I took the kids on a walk through the campground - the 2 miles took quite a long time as there was a beach stop plus a stop up at the snack shack for ice cream ;)

Shoreline exploration

Sam loves Maya

Love seeing the kids hang out together

There was some afternoon shenanigans

Peyron is such a good sport ;)

Such fun

Love these photos!

After dinner, Sam, Ryan and I took a walk along the beach

Goofball

Silly kid

Cute girl

Selfie with the cool sky all washed out ;) 

Beautiful sky

Shoreline exploration

Tidal pool fun

Low tide

Vicky, Maya, Sam and I walked down to the other rock outcropping to catch the sunset. We didn't quite get the full effect but still lovely!

Sam and Maya

On the rocks

Sunday morning, I headed out for a solo 8+ miler, running the trails through Wolfe's Neck and then down the road with a short side trail exploration out to Rachel's Cove and this vista

Nice view

On the running front, I didn't quite get in the miles I had hoped for on Saturday but I haven't quite kicked this cold and that seemed like enough. Still, with Sunday's miles, I managed to hit 50 miles on the nose for the week, so not too terrible. And of course, all the time with friends was such fun, and we lucked out with perfect weather too! A great weekend!!

Summer Cold

Sadly, although I wanted to wish it away, the cold I picked up from Sam was on its own schedule. Monday, I took a day off from running but got out both Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Tuesday was a nice morning running the cart path with a lollypop down to the river and back in the middle for 8 miles. The plan called for more, but I was trying to be at least not totally idiotic ;) I kept the pace relaxed and felt fairly decent, all things considered. Nice morning with a pretty pastel sunrise.

Wednesday was not quite as successful of a morning run. It was 67 degrees with a dewpoint of 67 and therefore 100% humidity, but not raining. It was so heavy out, and honestly, I felt pretty terrible. A 6 mile road run that was supposed to be at a quick pace but I had no energy and didn't even try. Ugh ugh ugh.

I was smart enough to realize that I probably needed to adjust the rest of my week so I scrapped the long run on Thursday and took the day off, with the plan of a Whiskeag run on Friday, long run on Saturday with friends and a short run around Wolfe's Neck on Sunday to finish up the week. As is typical with me, the training I have planned never fails to have a plot twist here or there ;) (good read), and I am resigned to the fact that this week will be lower mileage than I had initially hoped, but oh well, I'm doing what I can do and just trying to enjoy the ride. Of course, plot twists just keep right on coming, and things were almost derailed even more so last night when I woke up to a soft "mommy" that just meant something was wrong. In this case, the something wrong was a pile of bright pink throw-up all over Sam's bed and pillow. Oh yah, nothing like raspberry sorbet to make things look mighty pretty on the other side! Eekkk! The bed set and mattress pad and pillow were simply thrown out, the kid was cleaned up, new sheets put on and we put her back into bed, fingers crossed that it was just the combo of too much ocean water swallowed on yesterday's field trip combined with the hot dog, slushee and koolaid that she had on said field trip for lunch 😬😬

Thankfully, she went right bak to sleep and this morning seemed perfectly fine. After watching over her for a while, seeing that she was eating and acting OK, I dropped her off for her last day of camp for the summer, which was to be a fun camp carnival, and I headed out onto the Whiskeag Trail to test the legs and lungs. It was an insanely gorgeous morning - crisp and dry and sunny with a nice breeze. Just lovely! Today is the first day I've been on the Whiskeag all season, and it is still as rooty as I remembered ;) Hard to get a decent pace going but no matter, I was taking it easy and meandering along, stopping for some blackberries here and a photo there :) A good if slightly pokey 11 miles for the morning. Still sniffly with a lot of stuff being snot-rocketed out of my nose, but better than Wednesday for sure, and hopefully on the up and up!!

Along the horse fields

Low tide with Cardinal Flower

Confluence of the Kennebec and the Whiskeag

Happy, sniffly runner ;)

Sporting my snazzy Creeping Death Tour crew shirt 😂

The Narrows Trail along the river

Hard to tell in the photos, but so many lily pads! Beautiful!

Looking forward to a long run with Laurie and Vicky out at Wolfe's Neck tomorrow and a great weekend hanging out with friends! 

Quiet Weekend

Yesterday was a quiet day. Ryan headed to the Brad for a morning run while Sam and I slept in and then headed downtown for donuts at Frosty's (yum!) and exploring the Brunswick Arts Festival which was set up and down Maine Street. A good morning although both of us were tired! The rest of the day was spent at home, relaxing, which was much needed.

Yay donuts!

This morning, I was up early to get in my run but Sam had other ideas and woke up coughing and needing her inhaler (poor kid!), so I hung out with her for a while to let Ryan get a bit more sleep. I finally woke him up around 7:45 and headed out shortly after.

The plan called for a few more miles but I've definitely picked up some of Sam's germs and have a bit of a head cold, so in the end I decided on 12 miles out and back to Head of Tides, which was a bit more reasonable in terms of time and mileage but would still make it a decent week overall without overdoing it.

It was a nice sunny morning but extremely humid and even though the run was more of a meander, I finished up totally soaked - sweat was literally running down my legs into my shoes. So lovely! Ugh. Still, it was an enjoyable wander through the Cathance and I even found a new trail segment down along the river, which was fun.

Hints of fall

Damselfly (middle) on the Cardinal Flower along the river

Pretty color constrast

It was such a nice day that after lunch, we headed over to Wolfe's Neck for a short walk, just to get some air and some movement. We saw Tami right near the trailhead and she decided to join us, bringing the park's big viewing scope with her so that we could get some awesome viewing of the three juvenile osprey up on the nest and then out to some of the ledges at the end of the Casco Bay Trail where seal often hang out. None were to be seen today but it was fun nonetheless! It was low tide, so we wandered along the shoreline, looking at hermit crabs and green crabs, learning about sponges and seaweed from Tami and about the rock runnel that I found up out of the water, which was something I'd never seen before. Neat! It was a nice, mellow way to get outside for a bit this afternoon, and we all enjoyed having our own ranger tour from Tami too :)

Beautiful view

On the rocks

Looking at the hermit crabs along the shoreline

Low tide

We watched this Great Blue Heron catch a fish and then try to figure out how to eat it. It was pretty neat!

By the time we left the park, it was after 5:00 pm so we decided to head into town and go to Little Saigon, the Vietnamese restaurant Ryan has been wanting to go to. With Sam and I both still feeling stuffy, a big bowl of warm soup sounded like a good idea and it was delish! A good way to end the weekend!

Noodles!

Peace

I don't understand and feel heavy-hearted about the recent hatred and violence in our country, along with the president's lack of condemnation of this nastiness, but I do know that nature soothes my soul and running and hiking out the woods and the mountain clears my head, and this week, I am incredibly grateful to be able to do these things that bring me joy, when I know many others do not have a way to find their own peace.

It was good to be back in the woods on Monday morning. Ran up and over Mt. A. and out into the Cathance for a nice 6 mile loop. Stopped on the way up the road to pick a handful of super sweet, super large blackberries and enjoyed the misty morning light rising over the Heath and along the river.

Tuesday morning, I met up with my friend Lauren at 5:30 am over at the Bowdoin field house for a run out through the Commons and Coleman Farm. Lauren's boy, Ethan, was one of the kids in Sam's daycare at Building Blocks and they've been in the same class for several years. Lauren is also an awesome massage therapist and I've gotten a few very much needed massages from her in the past few months. When I found out she had taken up trail running and was now living in Brunswick, I told her I'd show one of my favorite trail systems - always fun to show a friend the trails you love!

It was a very foggy morning and the first half mile were run in murky early morning light. We had fun chatting away as we ran along and Lauren, despite her fears, did a great job keeping up a good pace and is a natural! She loves the ocean so I knew she would like the stretch out along the tidal marsh and through the pine trees at Coleman Farms. Always so lovely out there.

Of course, soon after we had just been discussing technical trails and how this run wasn't all that technical, what do I do but trip and fall and smash my knee 😂😂 Honestly, it is so typical! Ha. I will admit that it hurt a bit and it did create a lovely river of blood down my leg, but what to do but shake it off and keep on running?! 

Ha ha. We will see if Lauren ever runs with me again ;) In the end, despite the blood, it was a good 7.5 miles for the morning! 

Thursday I hit the roads for a good 8 mile run up over Mt. A and around the Highland Green loop twice. It was a nice, cool morning and the low pinkish orange orb of the sun was rising in the pastel sky at the back of the neighborhood, which is always a treat to see. I didn't set out to run any sort of pace or even really look at my watch so was happy to see I was able to at least pull off a few low 8s without too much effort. I will admit that my knee hurt a bit from Tuesday's fall but otherwise, I felt decent.

My plan for Friday was a mountain adventure run. My initial thought was to head over to the Baldface area, but rain was in the forecast for around 11:00 am and I didn't relish the thought of being up on those ledges in the rain, so I decided to pick something closer to home. I've been wanting to get up on some of the Georges Highland Path trails for a while now, so I decided today would be a good morning for it and chose the Ragged/Bald section to explore. 

I was up and out of the house just as the sky was turning light around 5:40 and the drive only took me a little over an hour with a stop for gas. Nice to be on the roads with no traffic :) I parked in the nice lot off of Rt. 17, got suited up and headed out onto the trails a minute before 7:00 am. 

The trail meandered through some nice woods with some rocky, rooty but still runnable, albeit slowly, terrain and then climbed up to some ledges with nice views down to Mirror Lake.

The sky was overcast, but honestly, the light shining through the clouds made it all the more beautiful.

The trail ascends to near the radio (?) tower atop the Camden Snow Bowl on Ragged Mountain, and I took a wrong turn on one of the paths that went over to the tower before figuring out that the Georges Highland Path actually hugged the backside of the summit, offering some sweeping views out into the distance as it wound along ledges and through patches of blueberries. I of course stopped to pick a few handfuls :) The contrast of the blue berries, the greenish-white lichen and the changing blueberry plant leaves was beautiful.

The trail ducked back into the woods and I came across a trail sign for the Hosmer Brook Trail which leads down to the base of the Snow Bowl. I will come back to explore those trails another day, for sure, but for today, I continued on. Soon after, I hit the junction with the Thorndike Brook Trail, another access point, and then Buzzard's Ledge, with some nice views out toward Camden.

The late summer/early autumn berries and plants were putting on a lovely show, with some nice patches of mountain cranberry mixed in with and around the blueberries, bunchberries and the blue bead lily beads out on display.

The trail descended steeply to Barnestown Road and crossed it with little fanfare to wander through the woods a ways before hooking up with the trail proper up Bald Mountain. This was a short, steep but rewarding jaunt, with lovely ledges and great views. 

My watch read 5.75 miles when I turned around and I could tell, from looking out into the distance, that the rains were headed our way. I was surprised to come across about a half a dozen people climbing Bald and then another 8 people between Barnestown Road and Rt. 17 on my way back, all hiking up toward Ragged in different spots. It is good to see the trail getting some use, but I had expected things to be more quiet on a day forecasted to be rainy!

I stopped a few times here and there on the return trip to soak in the views, pick a few more blueberries, add some water to my bladder from the softbottle I was carrying in one of my front pockets and to take a few more photos, but mostly I ran as much as I could and hiked as fast as I could when I couldn't run :)

I ended up with 11.4 miles for the morning in a little over 3 hours moving time. I felt a bit more tired than I would have liked, and I suspect I've picked up a bit of Sam's cold as I was feeling quite sniffly out there, but overall, I felt solid on the climbs and my typical cautious self on the descents ;) This was not a fast 'run' but I am happy to have gotten in some good climbing while out exploring new-to-me trails, taking in some gorgeous views on some rugged but truly lovely trails and clearing my head and finding some peace. And I beat the rain by about 10 minutes, so that is all good too :)