Friday Snow Fun

I got out this morning just as the sun was rising for a random wander on the powerlines and the roads around Mt. A. The fat tire bikers had been out, packing a nice thin line down to Tedford Crossing. From there, a snowmobiler had been out on the trail up to Rt. 24, but it was warm enough and the snow soft enough that there was still a lot of work going into the running, and my leg honestly wasn't liking it much, so I turned around and hit the roads for the final few miles to get in 5 miles for the morning. The rising sun was lovely as it rose above the snow cover, and it was nice to be out in the daylight!

Later in the afternoon as temps rose even more, we all donned our snowshoes and headed out for a nice 1.25 mile loop out in the Cathance. Sunshine, snow on the evergreens, the sound of the rushing river, lots of snowshoe hare tracks and a lovely time out in the snow together!

Darkness into Light

With today being winter solstice, it is the longest night of the year. This evening, I attended a homeless memorial service put on by Tedford and those in the surrounding community to remember and honor those lost in the past year to homelessness. While we mourn these passings, the overarching theme of the evening was that of hope, as we work together to find solutions to these challenges, and as long as one person is willing to put out a hand, to love, to assist, to put themselves in another's shoes and try to understand. I don't believe in God but I do believe that as people we have the capacity to do magical and wonderful things, and that sometimes all it takes is one kind word or action to help another, to find light in the darkness.

Darkness into light

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Monday morning, I headed out for a run. After our bizarre weather pattern, which ranged from arctic cold to snow to 40s and rain, temps were back to single digits. I was afraid I'd find more ice out given the deep freeze after the rain event, but the roads were all in decent shape, and the rain seemed to have been absorbed by the snow, so not too much harm done. I found that at least one snowmobile had been out on the powerlines and took those tracks over to Highland Green Road. I turned off at the first cut-off and ran the back dirt road, which was really all ice, and looped back around for a nice 4 miles. My leg was fine for the first half of the run and then proceeded to tighten, but it was definitely better than last week. I worked a lot on my hips and TFL muscle at the top of the IT band over the weekend and I think that helped for sure.

Tuesday dawned cold yet again, minus 3 by our thermometer so I stayed in bed ;) but this morning I was up and out before the sun. I ran the full 5 mile Highland Green loop as the horizon lightened and turned gold and pink. My leg held up pretty well but it is still not 100%. Still, it was a lovely morning to be out and I was happy to find the powerlines pretty well packed, and the back road a good mix of sand and ice, perfect for screwshoe running.

Cold

I had intended to run on Friday but man, was it cold out! -4 when we woke up with strong winds making the 'feel like' temps in the minus teen range. Brrr! So instead, Ryan and I went and caught a mid-day showing of Rogue One, because, well, why not? And it was pretty darn awesome!

It was still in the single digits around 3:00 pm when I picked Sam up at school to go downtown to do some Christmas shopping, and being the true Mainer that she is, she was not deterred by the cold weather and wanted to make a stop at Gelato Fiasco midway through our shopping to refuel ;) Never too cold for ice cream!

This morning, I headed out for my run at 6:50 am, just as a fine snow was starting to fall. I ran down to the Connector and turned onto Highland Green. My right leg is still quite tight, so I took the cut-off across from Mountain Road and looped back on the back dirt road and across onto the new bike path home for a cold, snowy 4.3 miles. Luckily, despite the fact that it was only reading 4 degrees out when I left the house, it was calm so I stayed nice and toasty running along!

The rest of the day was spent inside crossing things off our Christmas To Do list, including trying to write Christmas cards with Ronnie around ;)

By Light of the Moon

Got out this morning for the first snowshoe of the season! Ryan has been setting some tracks over on the golf course, but I found that the cart paths, out to the Mt. A. fields and up and over Mt. A. had all been groomed and with the colder temps, the lanes were packed enough that I wasn't leaving any more of an imprint that the deer and those who had already been out walking on the snow yesterday, so I stuck to the more firm ground rather than Ryan's thin ribbon of track.

As I started out, the day had not yet lightened, the moon shining brightly above, set against a deep blue-grey sky. Snowshoeing is hard work, but I couldn't help but notice how beautiful it was out! Such a nice, crisp morning.

Looped around the golf course, out onto the fields and up and over Mt. A. for a good 3 mile workout. My lower right leg/knee was definitely a bit grouchy with me in the final mile - boo! - but otherwise, it felt really good to be out on the snow!

Snowy

The snow arrived in the night. I woke to find the message on my phone that school was cancelled and we had a lazy morning here, complete with coffee once again by light of the Christmas tree...

Later in the morning, I couldn't take it any more... did more stretches, my push-ups, my little 5 lb weight arm exercises ;) and got ready to go out for a snowy run around the block. I lasted 8 days without running, what can I say, that was enough?! ;) Back at it. The roads were snowy and sloppy, the trails in the woods covered in 6" of fluffy snow. Slow going but nice to be out for a short 3 miles. Pretty out there. I didn't feel great, but I never imagined I would after a week off, but was hoping I wouldn't feel terrible ;) Overall, I'd say I felt ok, although the lower right leg still tight.

Snow-filled Queen Anne's lace

Red and white. Love how the winterberries pop at this time of year!

By 11:30, the snow had stopped and a light rain began to fall, so I went into work for the afternoon. Sam and Ryan got outside to tromp around in the snow and go sledding for a bit before returning home to play games for the rest of the afternoon. Good old snowday fun!

Out sledding!

Merry & Bright

Christmas has arrived in our house... 

Great Grammie's white Christmas tree

The tree and our little elf ;)

Merry and bright

And the stockings were hung...

My very own Sparkplug ornament. One of my favorites.

Rest

The Fells... in photos...

Pretty much how I felt all day....

I think this is more of a grimace than a smile... lap #4

This is my favorite. At least here I looked focused ;)

(All Photos by Zachariah Minnick)

Sunday, I felt pretty terrible. My legs were sore and I was exhausted. I hacked all day long (and Saturday evening too). This week, things have slowly turned around. My legs felt better by Tuesday and my cold is now, finally, almost entirely gone. Not sure 9 1/2 hours out in the cold helped but at least it didn't seem to make it worse, perhaps just prolonged things... My plan was to take this week off entirely anyway, so no harm done. So this week has called for rest and healing, and eat all the things ;) You know the drill. I'll try to make it through part of next week without any running too, but we'll see how that goes. I'm already starting to get antsy :)

I wonder sometimes why I do these things, go out and run for hours on end when it doesn't always feel good, when I don't always feel good. I still have not quite found a way to express why ultras call to me, to try these seemingly crazy things and see what happens.

Today I read a post from the Chronicles of an Endurance Athlete's Wife that contained the following:

'A friend recently sent my husband a quote by David Blaikie about ultrarunning and it got me thinking about this whole shebang.

“Perhaps the genius of ultrarunning is its supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world of spaceships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense.

The ultra runners know this instinctively. And they know something else that is lost on the sedentary.
They understand, perhaps better than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing open with physical effort.

In running such long and taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest realms of their being – a call that asks who they are …”'

These are someone else's words, yes, but they help me, little by little, to understand why finishing that 40, painful as it was, is important, why another 100 is on my list, why there is joy in pain and satisfaction in grinding it out. There is indeed more to life than logic and common sense. Sometimes it is what flies in the face of those both that is the most rewarding, the most interesting. I may be a logical gal who truly is most rooted in reality and common sense, but that is oh so boring ;) Sometimes you have to step outside, to see what you're made of...

2016 TARC Fells 40 Race Report

"At every endurance event, there comes a time when you'll say, 'what the fuck am I doing here?' And you'll say 'this is what I do.'"- Long Distance, Bill McKibben

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The day dawned clear, cold and windy. A bunch of crazy ultrarunners gathered in a park n ride lot off 93, the parking lot under construction, the side of the lot lined with barbed wire. After a few words from the RD, we took off, at a walk, into the woods for laps along the 8-mile Skyline Trail. As the RD said post-race, the Skyline Trail is a cruel mistress. And that is no lie. A hiking trail with many steep rocky ups and downs, rocky ridgelines, views of Boston, rocky, leafy singletrack combined with little bits of runnable terrain, this trail is no joke.

Trail Monster crew ready to take on the Fells

Thankfully today, unlike in 2014, conditions were pretty much perfect. The rocks and roots were dry, the sun was shining, and although it was cold and windy, it was a good day for running. This time around, I chose to go right on the Skyline Trail vs. left, which is how the majority of runners run the loop, and I enjoyed the relative solitude of being able to run my own pace, even early on, and being able to see everyone going in the other direction.

Unfortunately, although I was able to fake it for the first loop (1:37) and the second (1:47), by 16 miles and 3+ hours, I was feeling the effects of having been sick all week last week. While I thankfully didn't have any coughing fits out there, I simply had no energy. I was moving forward but it was a battle the whole time.

Lap #3 was not a good day in the woods (2:02) and I was flagging. My lower right leg also began to get incredibly tight in that 3rd lap, which was a real bummer as it had been feeling good leading into the race, and I was just not able to run as much as I should have. I hadn't stopped at the mid-way aid station or even the start/finish station yet, but I did make a stop in that 3rd lap, as Ryan had inadvertently filled my bladder with Tailwind instead of water at 16 miles, and man, that is some disgusting stuff. Ugh. I dumped it all out and was so glad to be back to good old water!

Headed back out

I thought at the end of 24 miles that I was done, as it was nearly 5:30 on the clock and I was running out of time if I wanted to complete lap #4 in 7:30. Not what I had been hoping for with this race, for sure, but it was the hand dealt to me on the day and I was working with what I had, which honestly wasn't much ;) Ryan later said that I was as white as he'd ever seen me at that point and did not look good. Although my mind was saying 'don't keep going' and I had the lines from the Jaws song, "I'm tired and I want to go home..." rolling through my head, instead I changed into my yellow jacket as it was getting colder, grabbed a cookie and headed back out for loop #4 at 5:28 in. I had beaten a bit on my leg in the parking lot, and it did feel better so I continued my trudge.

Toward the end of the 4th loop, I kept looking at my watch, knowing I was nearing the time cut-off. Part of me wanted to slow down enough that I would get cut off but apparently, my legs, although tired and sore, did not agree, and I managed to come into the finish line in 7:29 and change, as close to the cut-off as I could get without being cut (1:59 lap). Why was I doing this?! I told Ryan I didn't want to go back out, that I wasn't having fun, and he said, no, you are going back out and of course it isn't fun. As the RD playfully whacked a stick in my direction, encouraging me to get my ass back out there before it was too late, I walked back out onto the trail, headlamp in my pack pocket, Ryan beside me, encouraging me, Keri behind in a scramble to get ready to join me for the loop. I know that deep down I really did want to continue on, to give what I had to the challenge and see if I could beat it, even if the rest of me wanted to curl up and take a nap, but it was a close call there for a few minutes ;)

I believe we are having a "discussion" here about whether or not I am going to continue for lap 5 ;) I was not a happy camper!

I am incredibly thankful to have had Keri with me on that last lap as she gave me a reason to keep my foot on the gas, as slow as that was at the moment. I didn't want to be a total disaster with a friend beside me. And so we ran what we could, powerhiked the hills, pushing forward in an attempt to beat darkness and the cut-off. Tami, Tammy and Emily had come out to the aid station to give Keri a headlamp and it was a boost to see them there cheering for us. I was hungry at that point, having not eaten a lot all day, and I grabbed a mini milky way at the aid station to eat as we hiked up the hill.

It was quiet out there now, a change from seeing runners on every lap along with many people out walking with and without dogs. Not many runners still running. We ran into John out running a loop of the course and he encouraged us on. The late afternoon light atop the rocky ridgeline was lovely and the view of the city near the tower pretty. The wind whipped and the woods got dark.

In the final mile, Keri took the lead, pushing me to run faster and finish before a headlamp was needed. Mercifully, we soon reached the final descent down to the flat path that led to the finish. There, we saw John and another runner ahead. I so wanted to finish that I started to sprint, well, if 9:00 pace can be considered sprinting ;) But it felt that way after many 14:00+ minute miles! That final sprint is all that kept me from being DFL, as I only managed to beat the guy I passed by 12 seconds and he ended up being the final finisher.

And then, finally, at the end of the straightaway, redemption! I lifted my arms and smiled as I reached the finish line and then two steps later said "F**kers." ;) I'm pretty sure that sums up the race right there. It had just taken me almost 9 1/2 hours to run 40 miles. So grateful and thankful to be done, proud to have finished, but man, if that isn't one tough course. F**kers indeed! It sure wasn't pretty, but I had finished and now I never have to run that race again ;)

There are a lot of thank yous on a day like yesterday. Many thanks to the RD and all the volunteers for standing out in the wind and cold all day yesterday, and for their encouraging cheers and smiles. Huge thanks to John and Ryan for crewing all day long - it is tough work! As always, Ryan knows me better than I know myself and knows when to push and how to prod me forward. I may have been disgruntled, but I am glad he got me back out there for that final lap, and I always appreciate his belief in me. An extra big thank you to Keri for joining me and pushing me on that last lap. I probably would still be out there if she hadn't joined me!!

Also, huge congrats to Emily for her 2nd place 32 mile finish and to George and Carolyn for their finishes too. Tami and Tammy got in two laps before stopping due to injured leg and ankle, but it was great to see them out there along the way!

The Fells is one tough, unforgiving course and a serious challenge. Almost half the field running the 40 DNFed yesterday, and although I can hardly believe it took me 9:28 to finish 40 miles, who cares, I finished!

RESULTS 
9:28:28
14 of 15 finishers (27 started) (6th of 6 women)

I have yet to see a photo from the race in which I'm smiling, which is probably an accurate account of how I was feeling all day long, but I swear I did smile for a few photographers out there, so if I find any that depict happiness, I will be sure to post ;)

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Meanwhile, Sam spent the day helping Dana and Irene decorate the Christmas tree. Sounds pretty good, right? Many thanks to Grammie and Grampie for keeping her occupied and entertained while I ran around in the woods all day long :)

Ready Or Not

Well, Fells 40 on Saturday, ready or not!

I had been feeling really strong, especially with a solid last long weekend of 20 hilly miles at Bradbury and 9 hilly miles at Thorncrag the weekend before Thanksgiving. But the past week has given me pause, since I picked up Sam's cold and now can't quite shake the congestion that remains in my head/throat/upper chest. I don't know how much it will impact things on Saturday, but I definitely felt it when I went out for an early and dark run along the cart paths on Wednesday morning. In the glint of my headlamp in the woods before hole #6, I saw a pair of eyes glowing. The dim light enabled me to just see the white tail of a deer as it gracefully bounded off into the woods. As I ran past that spot, I turned to look and saw not one, but two, pairs of eyes staring back at me. I wonder what they thought of me running past. Five cart path miles for the morning.

This morning's run was a bit better. I'm still congested and legs felt kind of crappy (hopefully from the taper which seems to bring that on. Why is that?!?) but it was nice to get out on a sunny morning and loop around the Heath.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm nervous as it's a stout course with a stout time cut off but I'll give it I've got!!

Forced Taper

Well, because it is just how things go, I managed to pick up Sam's germs and now have a cold. Gah!! Managed to catch some extra sleep on Friday and Saturday, and spent all day Friday lazing around, watching the rain fall and the kids run around wildly, both of which were good but I had really hoped for some miles on Friday! Ah well.

Late morning on Saturday after the fog had lifted, Ryan and I headed out on the roads for the Weldon Farms loop, at a more reasonable pace than Thursday. Nice to have a chance to run with Ryan! Doesn't happen too often!! Not sure the five miles did much in the face of all the leftovers but it was a good run :)

Sunday, we were back at home and the cats woke me up early. Of course ;) So after a leisurely, quiet start to the day, with Ryan and Sam still sleeping, I snuck out at 8:00 for a run. It started to rain about a minute into the run, and I decided to keep it short with a cart path/Heath loop. Definitely not feeling great but it could be worse. Got in a 5 mellow miles before coming home for a shower and cup of tea.

So a bit more of a forced taper this week than I had hoped for but hopefully with all the ammo I can throw at the cold, a bit of extra rest and a few miles next week, I'll be ready to go for Fells. Fingers crossed!!!

Thanksgiving Fun

Thankful for time with the family this weekend!