A Run Adventure & Picking Sam Up at Camp

Work was crazy this week and I didn't have a lot of extra anything to give, so I was grateful that the plan was for a mellow first part of the week on the running front, as Emily and I had plans for a grand adventure later in the week!

Monday morning, I was up and out for a road run before heading into the office. Pretty morning. Cool, although still reasonably humid, but much more managable when it isn't as hot out! (6.5 miles)

Tuesday, Ryan and I got out for a late afternoon walk around the school block. Warm and quite breezy. (1.77 miles walked)

Wednesday was an early morning run to the river and back. Humidity is back - so sweaty and so muggy! 💦- but the morning mist was beautiful out along the powerlines and over the Heath. (6.0 miles)

When Emily and I were planning our Pemi adventure, we set aside two days for it, just in case the weather dictated a shift, and we ended up shifting the run until Friday due to the forecast for unsettled weather on Thursday. 

So on Thursday, as I already had taken the day off, I didn't rush out the door, heading out around 7:30 for a run on the powerlines. A bright and very humid morning - so sweaty! 💦- with wood lilies galore and a few stops to eat trailside raspberries and blueberries. Yum. (6.6 miles)

Then I used the rest of the day to get my typical Friday errands and house chores done, along with making sure everything fit into my pack 😂 so that I was all ready to head out for the early morning ride over to NH on Friday.

I headed out around 3:45 am on Friday into the darkness. The moon was shining brightly above and I enjoyed seeing the sky lighten as I drove the backroads. Up along the Kanc, the sun rising above the mountains was beautiful, and I knew we were in for a great day in the mountains!

I arrived a few minutes before Emily did and we got ourselves organized, hit the bathrooms one last time and headed out across the bridge right after 6:30. Temps were in the 50s, and I realized I had forgotten my arm sleeves, but figured we'd warm up quickly once we started running and that the day would no doubt warm up as well. 

The first 1.4 miles were along the flat rail bed on the Lincoln Woods Trail and then we turned up the Osseo Trail towards Flume. I can see why people say this is a nice runnable start, but there was definitely some hiking too. The uphill miles went by quickly as we chatted away and we soon hit a viewpoint and several sets of ladders, which made me feel a bit of vertigo as I climbed, but which thankfully quickly receded. 

It was bright and clear and windy atop the summit, and with neither of us liking heights too much, we stuck closely to the trees on the inside of the trail 😂

From there, it was down into the trees again and up to the rest of Franconia Ridge, where we started to see more people hiking and backpacking. But it was a gorgeous Friday so I wasn't at all surprised, and I never felt like it was so crowded that we weren't able to enjoy our own space. The views along the ridge were amazing. It truly was a perfect day to be up high in the mountains! We were moving well, eating every 45 minutes or so and we were quite well-matched in terms of pace, which made easy to hang together. While Emily is younger, more graceful and probably stronger overall, I have more mountain experience and a bit more training under my belt at the moment, and we were both tentative on the downhills 😂 so that worked well. 

I knew from previous times hiking and backpacking along the ridge that the stretch on the Garfield Ridge Trail seems to go on forever, and indeed it did. The trail was rugged enough that we weren't really doing much running at all, and the rocky downhills were slow. I ended up having to stop at the spring at the Garfield tentsite to fill up my soft flask, as I had run out of water shortly before. The filter worked great, although it would have definitely been slow to fill up my whole bladder with it! As it was, it took us way longer to get from the tentsite to the hut than I anticipated, so I was out of water again by the time we hit the hut. Ah well. It was a decent weather day so it was OK, although I was definitely thirsty!

Looking at my watch, our pace had slowed a lot and I knew if we completed the loop, it would very likely take us way longer than we had originally anticipated. I was OK with that, but I wanted us to be cognizant of it and assess to ensure we were making the correct decision, as the hut was the last spot to bail down into the valley and out early. I had really been enjoying our adventure, but it was way more hiking than running and while I don't think we underestimated the difficulty of the terrain, I think we way overestimated our ability to run it in 10-12 hours. A bit more mountain training might have helped a wee bit 😉😆

We stopped at the hut to fill up our bladders, and went inside to enjoy a cup of lemonade and some still-warm, freshly baked cookie bars while we pondered our options. In the end, we decided that, although we both felt decent, the smartest thing was to go for a semi-Pemi instead of the full loop. I have no doubt the full loop could have been done, but I doubt it would have been pretty and might have been pushing it just a bit more than was wise. I think we were both at peace with the decision - I certainly was. I had really enjoyed being out in the mountains with Emily, we had a great time, it was a beautiful day, and I knew I'd be getting 10+ hour and a solid training day out of it even without the full loop. And so it was that we cut off down the Twin Brook Trail to the valley floor. 

It was a nice decent, and once we got to the Franconia Brook Trail, totally runnable. We weren't setting any mile records, but we were moving along at a fair pace given that we'd already been on our feet for 9+ hours at that point and we were able to run most of the way back to the car with only a few walk breaks and many stream crossings! Of course, in that stretch Emily also managed to whack her head right into a downed tree across the trail and trip on a totally flat stretch of trail, so perhaps that tells you our state of mind (and body) in the final miles 😁😜 Thankfully she was ok in both instances!

All told, an excellent mountain adventure and so much fun to spend the day on the trails, in the woods and in the mountains with Emily! Conditions and weather really were as good as they could have been. We saw many toads, one garter snake, a multitude of shinleaf, bunchberry, partridgeberry and wood sorrel along with a beautiful patch of purple-fringed orchid along a stream bank along the Franconia Brook Trail - so cool. And since we didn't get in the full loop, oh darn, it just means we'll have to come back next year! 😉😅😊 Thanks for a great day, Emily! (26.4 miles)

Overall, we were out for 10:40. I felt decent throughout with good energy. Emily led all day, setting a good pace. Food consumed: 2x Gu Summit Tea in the soft flask; 4x Awesome Sauce; 2x Untapped gels; 1 Snickers; 1 Zbar, some dried mango, plus the lemonade and cookie bar at the hut. So fueling was no problem, and I ate about 2,000 in calories from food that I was carrying plus the hut food, so plenty. Would have probably run out of food for the remainder of the trip if we'd done the full loop, mostly because I had based my packing on 10-12 hours and not longer, but given that we could run most of the Franconia Brook Trail and Lincoln Woods on the way out and were therefore going at a slighly faster clip, it was fine. Note to self for next time.

Then it was time for the drive home! I felt better than I thought I might, for which I was grateful as it was a long 2 1/2 hour drive. I stopped in Conway and picked up a 10" cheese pizza and then in Naples to get a waffle cone filled with coffee softserve ice cream, so that helped. Then a bit of unpacking, a quick shower and to bed! 

Saturday morning, I got up and relaxed on the couch a bit before heading up to Winthrop to pick Sam up from camp. Hard to believe that two weeks had already gone by! It was great to see her and so fun to hear all her stories on the way home. 😍 I'd missed her!

Here are a few photos from her two weeks:

Meanwhile, Ryan was over in VT captaining the TMR aid station at the VT 100 on Saturday and then helping out overnight at Spirit of 76 with our friends Nick and Sarah. I didn't sleep well on Friday night but last night managed to sleep reasonably soundly and then after padding downstairs at 5:00 am to feed the cats, I went back to sleep for another hour or so, and thus had only been up for a short bit before Ryan walked in the door at 6:45 am this morning and headed straight upstairs for a shower and a nap after a long but fun day and night. 

I relaxed on the couch for a while, and then finally decided to head out for a short run. My quads were definitely sore, but otherwise I felt OK, so I figured I could get in a few very mellow miles. I took it nice and easy, enjoying many berry stops along the powerlines. By the time I headed out around 9:30, the day had warmed up quite a bit so I was quite sweaty by the time I finished, but was glad the legs had held up reasonably well, and it was nice to be able to get out and move a bit! (6.0 miles)

Then to finish out the weekend, Sam and I headed over to Fielder's Choice in the afternoon for ice cream, because, well, it was National Ice Cream Day! Although let's be honest, I really don't need an excuse for ice cream 😂😉😊😋