Last Week of Summer

Monday, Sam and I were home, so after a quiet morning, a haircut for Sam, lunch out together and then a few errands, we headed over to Bradbury for a short hike. It was a beautiful afternoon and always nice to get out in the woods with my girl! :)

This kid. Getting so big!

Bright shoes! And yes, her feet are almost as big as mine ;)

Summit selfie

Tuesday morning, I ran the cart paths with a loop down to the river and back thrown in the middle for a nice 8 miles. It was 49 degrees out and dark, which meant both the headlamp and arm sleeves made appearances :) Gorgeous sky over the Heath.

Not a bad way to start the day

Wednesday, Lauren came over to run out in the Cathance with me. I lent her Sam's headlamp as she hadn't thought to bring her own, and I think she might have been slightly horrified that I would run up and over Mt. A. and out in the woods by myself in the darkness ;) but she was a good sport. It was overcast so the woods stayed darker much longer than I thought they should so we just kept the pace nice and easy so as to stay upright :) 6.9 miles for the morning. Couldn't bring myself to run a lap around the parking lot to round things out to 7 or she might have thought I was really nuts!

This morning, Ryan very nicely took Sam to Miss Amber's so that I could get an early start on my miles. I headed over to Bradbury with a plan to run laps around the mountain side. Up the summit, down Tote, out on Boundary, back on Reverse Mindy to Tote, back to Boundary and on lap one, Lunchbreak, and subsequent laps, South Ridge and Summit, then back to the summit and down Northern Loop to the parking lot. Four laps yielded 22 miles and I was more than happy with that. Congestion is not quite gone yet, but it was a lovely morning and although I certainly wasn't pushing the pace, I felt decent overall. 

We're headed to Acadia for the long weekend, so there will be plenty of hiking and hopefully a few mountain runs there to round out the week!

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!