Gluttony

In a fit of anger and hunger following an attempt to find a trail race to fit into our April schedule, Snowman yelled out "I want donuts!" So, off to Dunkin Donuts we went, in a fit of blatant junk food binging. Of course, it was 5pm, so the donut choices were slim, but we managed to pick a half dozen and promptly finish them all off. Yup, 3 donuts each. Before dinner. How "fat American." But at least we ran for 8.5 miles earlier. That makes the donuts not count, right?

Snowmobile Trail Run

Snowman and I headed over to Bradbury Mountain State Park late this morning for a long run. With the weather over the past few days, we decided the Snowmobile Trail would be our best bet for a good solid surface. We headed out the Link Trail, which was a frozen mess of footprints, until we passed the Lanzo Trail. There Snowman noted that a few snowshoers had been out onto Lanzo, packing things down. And it was now frozen solid. So, we thought we'd try it. It was a great surface until intersection 83, where the surface was no longer solid. We were postholing regularly, and both of us have the cuts (Snowman) and bruises (me) to prove it. Ow! So, a few minute later, around we turned. Back to the Link. And onto the Snowmobile Trail. Ahhh... the Snowmobile Trail had been used recently by, yup you guessed it, snowmobilers and the churned up frozen surface was great for running. It was a nice morning, around 29 degrees, sunny and a bit windy, and we enjoyed our journey through the woods. We made it out to the edge of a (gravel?) pit past Brown Road, where we stopped and tried a few Clif Shot Bloks before we turned around. I felt really good for most of the run, but was a bit tired on the last big hill near the park's boundary. There Snowman took the lead and we made our way back down the trail and onto the Link back to the parking lot. We figured we ran 8.5 miles in our 1:18 out on the trails. May have been more, but as we don't have a GPS it's hard to tell. Still, it seems plausible that we were running 9:15's and probably faster at some points. Regardless, it was a good solid run, and a good excuse to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on the couch watching an Anthony Bourdain marathon!

Ski to the Clouds from the Sidelines

Today was Ski to the Clouds, hosted up at Great Glen Trails. The course for this 10k race was 4k on the Great Glen trail system and then up the Mt. Washington Auto Road for the rest of the race. Now, for those of you who don't know, the Auto Road is literally all uphill. Yikes. This is a serious race. Needless to say, I was happy to offer my services as a volunteer (well, Snowman really volunteered me, but I had planned to come up anyway) and watch from the sidelines! I just haven't been skiing strongly enough this season to think I could do the race with any sort of ease.

Now that you know what the race was like, let's just add to the difficulty... It poured like crazy all afternoon and evening on Saturday and then at some point in the night got cold enough that things froze solid. Then in the early hours of Sunday morning, it started to snow. And with the snow came the wind. The flags on the lodge deck were flapping like crazy and the newly fallen snow was swirling in the air. Tough conditions. But the groomers did awesome, going over the course multiple times and tilling and grooming the course up as best they could. And the racers were in good spirits, looking forward to this adventure.

I was manning an intersection along the Great Glen trail section, where the skiers came down a hill and took a sharp turn. The lead pack went through quickly, and the rest of the field followed, with many people waving and smiling as they made the corner. It was fun to cheer everyone on!

Once the final skier had gone by, I took a quick spin around the trail system. Actually, with the new snow in the tracks, the skiing was pretty good, albeit with a very hard surface underneath.

Back in the race, 2006 Olympian Justin Freeman took the lead going up the Auto Road and won by over 2 minutes. Wow! Awesome job to all the racers, and to the staff at Great Glen Trails. Everyone I talked to after the race had good things to say about their experience. I mean, how many people can say they've skied up (oh yes, and down--after they'd finished their race) the Auto Road?!

On an unrelated note, I had three bald eagle sightings today. Two eagles were floating high on the air waves over Rt. 196 in Lisbon Falls; the third was sitting in a tree along the Androscoggin along the bike path as I drove by on my way to the grocery store this evening. Cool!

Middle Bay Run

Despite what I said in yesterday's post about trying to avoid running on the roads due to high snowbanks, low shoulder and lots of slop along the side of the roads, I ended up doing this morning's run, yup you guessed it, on the roads... Since I was on the bike path yesterday, and didn't want an exhausting run like Snowman's run yesterday in the Commons, I decided to do the Middle Bay loop. And actually, it wasn't so bad. The town of Brunswick seems to have been extra diligent with the spreading of sand this winter--the shoulders and edge of the roads had a solid covering of sand--so no slipping. In fact, the worst part of the run was on Maine Street, which is where I thought it would be best. The sidewalks had been half-heartedly plowed, so they were an unfriendly surface to run on, and the shoulder, which is wide, was a mixture of ice floes and snow removed from the sidewalks. Oh well, I didn't get run over, so it all turned out OK. My training "plan" called for 5 miles today, and this loop was 5.5 miles. Perfect. Ended with 47:30.

Slippery 4

I needed to be to work extra early today, by 9am. I know, horror of all horrors, having to be at work by 9am. I really am not complaining, I swear! But to do so, I have to be out the door by 8:15 and therefore if I wanted to run, needed to be back at the house ready to shower and eat by 7:45. And since the streets have become dangerous--huge snowbanks combined with no shoulder, plus the ice and frozen slush from yesterday's storm--I figured heading to the bike path would be the best course of action for this early morning run. So up at 6:15 and starting my run at 7:00 on the nose. There were no other cars in the lot, even though it was a beautiful bright sunny morning. Temps had dipped below freezing last night and although the windless 27 degrees felt great, it also had transformed yesterday's rain and slush into some nice ice floes and interesting frosted patterns on the paved path. This made the run a bit interesting, as although I had decent traction in some parts, in others there was black ice and the aforementioned ice floes. But all in all, a great way to start the morning. 4 miles, 34:15.

Flora and fauna highlight of the morning was a beautiful large red tailed hawk sitting quietly on a branch in the sun by the river's edge.

Nordic Meisters #6

We awoke to pouring rain and gusting winds. Perfect day for a ski! However, by 9am, it had stopped raining and the mountains were peeking out from the clouds. Bright blue sky appeared. Excellent.

Still, all the rain and the warm temps left the snow really slow and soft and just plain old wet. I was tempted to use my waxless skis but thought I'd give Universal klister a try. This seemed like a day when the klister would work well. I wish I could say it did work well for me, but it did not. I flailed about. On the uphills, on the flats, and even on the downhills. I could not get any kick. Plus, the snow was so slow, I had to double pole or even kick and glide to get down the hills. Not good times. I finished off the 2008 Nordic Meister season with my slowest time yet, 34:55. Yikes.

I was kicking myself for not being able to get the klister to work, as it really can be awesome and just seemed like it should have been great today, until I saw Snowman come back in and trade in his klistered skis for his waxless skis... Well, at least it wasn't just me who couldn't get the klister to work! I must admit, that makes me feel a bit better... my time is still slow, but oh well. You just never know what you'll get when you come out on Nordic Meister Tuesdays!

Happy Place

Most of the times I'm out running, hiking, snowshoeing or cross country skiing, I easily get into a rhythm, which allows me to enjoy what I'm doing and quiet my mind, reaching a "happy place," so to speak. Although I love skiing, I definitely struggle more with it as a discipline. Running and hiking are so natural to me. Skiing takes a bit more work and some days I just don't have it. And today, well, it was just one of those days. We headed over to Great Glen around 11am, hitting a lot of mid-morning traffic as well as a few rain and sleet showers on the way. However, by the time we had reached Gorham and stopped for lunch, the skies had cleared and the mountains peeked out from the clouds. Perhaps it was going to be a nice afternoon after all!

We put on our waxless skis and got onto the trails around 2pm. But the snow was bizarre. They had received a foot of snow on Friday/Saturday, so things were soft, but there was a glazed layer on top, presumably from the earlier rain/sleet. My skis just would not kick. And with my struggles, I just couldn't find a rhythm. Getting frustrated, I shouted "I am not in a happy place!" Poor Snowman, now he had to deal with me for the rest of the ski... but we continued to ski through the trail system, as I didn't want to just give up and go in, and we finally managed to hit a good long section where the snow had softened up and I could actually kick and glide. Yes! A happy place at last.... sometimes I guess, you just have to work through it to get there.

Ten Fundamental Truths About You (A Runner)

Snowman sent me the link to a website called Runnerville. I haven't read much on it, but he did point an article out to me to read, which for all you runners out there reading this blog, is pretty funny, well, because it's true... So, here they are, his "Ten Fundamental Truths about You (A Runner)." (You may have to scroll down below the fold to get to the top 10 list.) Enjoy!

Another Commons Adventure

We actually had originally intended to join in on the 50k Fat Ass race that Trail Monster Running was putting together at Bradbury State Park this morning. For those of you who are metrically challenged, 50k is 31 miles. No, we did not intend to do all 31 miles, but were planning to do one 10.5 mile loop. And yes, there is actually a type of race specifically called "Fat Ass" races. They are basically grass-roots style, laid back "races" without an entry fee, no prizes and the entrants bring the goodies for the aid stations. From what I understand, most of these races are in the winter, when there aren't as many long distance races available. Anyway, with the snow we received yesterday, we went back and forth last night trying to decide if we should go or not. We finally decided to go. But then, in our sleep, we decided not to, as when Snowman came downstairs at 5:30 am (the race started at 7:00 am), he said, "What are we thinking? This is going to suck." So, we had a brief discussion in which we decided we didn't need this 10.5 mile run at this point in our training and that a real slog through the snow for 10 miles might not be the best thing for us... Upon that realization, we promptly went back to bed and I didn't get up until 9:00 am. Ahhh....

So, we decided to do a run in the Commons instead. We headed out about 1:30 with our YakTrax and were glad we had decided upon a run in the woods instead of on the roads. Boy was it windy! At least the woods protected us a bit from the gusts. We ran for 55 minutes, mostly on the packed down main trails, but adding in the one section we'd done last time we were in the Commons that hadn't seen any traffic. It made for some nice post-holing and tough going! That made us very happy with our decision to skip out on the Fat Ass this time around. We'll get that in another time.

5 in 1

1 degree, that is. Yup. That's cold!

I didn't run yesterday, and it's supposed to snow another 6" on us tomorrow starting after midnight tonight, so tomorrow is out. Therefore, the run had to be today if it was going to happen this week (my version of week being from Sunday through Saturday, mostly because that's how my running log calendar is laid out but also because Sunday starts my "weekend").

So, looking at the thermometer at 6:45, it read 0.6. Hmmm... Better put more clothes on! I layered up and headed to the bike path, arriving at 7:30 after Snowman had finally gotten out the door to work. (When he is headed up to Great Glen, he is always loaded down for what seems like a week-long trip... work bag; overnight bag; wax box; ski bag; cooler; breakfast... it takes three trips to get everything into the car!) Anyway, there were no other cars in the lot, surprise, surprise, as the car thermometer read 1 degree.

Luckily, there was no wind, so after a fast first mile to warm myself up, it wasn't so bad. Cold and crisp, yes, but sunny too, which was nice. If it had been windy, it would have been another story, but... The 5 miles went by pretty easily, and I ended the run in 42:30 and with a frost covered face and a fair amount of frozen snot! Sorry, not a very attractive picture, but it's true!

All in all, I was pretty happy with my run and glad I didn't let the temperature deter me. Perhaps it's the warrior in me... (take the runner's quiz to find out what kind of runner you are) :-)

Flora and fauna notes for the morning include a big flock (30+) robins in the trees overhead. These robins, which according to my readings, have come south from Canada and are more richly colored, with a beautifully deep red belly, than the robins we tend to see here in the summer. Neat. Also saw a bald eagle flying over Route 1 on my way to work, and half a dozen hooded mergansers in their "usual" spot by the wetlands water drainage in Woolwich.

Why don't I have a camera phone?

One of my favorite things about this time of year is that we gain a bit of light each and every day. Which means that today on the way home from work, I caught the whole of tonight's sunset. Beautiful. As I drove south, the sky lit up with an array of wonderous colors. Brilliant pinks and oranges mixed with the more subtle bands of pastel pinks, purples and blues, set above the dark trees and bright white of the snow on the river and in the fields. I wish I had had a camera or camera phone with me to capture the beauty, but you'll just have to take my word for it... What a relaxing way to end the work day!

Nordic Meisters #5

If you've been following my blog, or perhaps Snowman's, you realize that today is actually week #7 of Nordic Meisters but as I've missed two weeks, it is my week #5. In order to be in the raffle at the end of the season, you have participate in 6 of the 8 weeks, so I had to race today and have to race next week. Can't miss out on the raffle!

It started snowing, very lightly, around 8am, so I decided to stick with my lazy-man plan to use my waxless skis. People were doing all sorts of things to their skis. Snowman used binder with hard wax; Rosemary used klister with hard wax over it; etc etc. Skiing is such a simple yet not simple sport. But the advantage of the waxless skis is that you can just put them on and go. Yes, they can be a bit slower, but sometimes they are just worth it. So, that is what I did. My unofficial time was 25:10. Not bad. I am a bit sore from our run yesterday, but it felt good to get in some skiing.

All in all, it was a nice day with good skiing, better than we had expected, with snow lightly falling and a soft light all around. The clouds had closed in around the Presidentials, but started lifting as Snowman and I finished up our cool-down ski. Very nice.

Bradbury Run and New Shoes

Another beautiful day today. Blue skies and warm temps. Gorgeous! Snowman and I had decided that we would head to Bradbury today to get in a long trail run. The park was quiet as we donned our YakTrax and headed out on the Perimeter Trail. Although relatively small, the park has a great system of trails and being close to both Portland and Brunswick, gets a lot of use. The Perimeter Trail was nicely packed down by what looked like walkers, snowshoers and a few adventurous skiers. We had to jump a few water bars and open streams, so the skiing would have been interesting, but it was great running. With the warm temps, the snow was a bit soft but still pretty solid and we enjoyed our jaunt along the edge of the park. We split off from that trail to head up to the "summit", an open ledge area overlooking the surrounding fields and woods, very picturesque, and then back down toward the parking lot. The flora and fauna highlight of the run was that Snowman, in the lead, spotted a pileated woodpecker up in a tree. We watched it for a while as it hopped up the tree trunk and headed out onto a branch, where it called out its song. Neat!

That loop got us about 42 minutes of running, so we headed across the street, which leads out to a wide snowmobile trail that heads through hill and dale into Durham and then eventually to the Androscoggin River. Ian and Jamie, two ultra trail runners in the area, both blogged about running along this snowmobile trail toward the river earlier this month. We did not get that far, needless to say, but ran for a ways along the trail before turning back. There had been a fair amount of recent snowmobile activity along the trail, but despite that, or maybe because of that, the snow was a strange texture, sort of loose and granular, all churned up. I think because I was getting tired at this point, it seemed harder than it should have been, and at the hour mark, I declared I was ready to turn around. We finished with a run of 1:16, which we figured was about 7.5 miles. Not too shabby! My legs are definitely feeling it, but it's a good tired!

After showering, eating lunch and packing up to head up to Great Glen to meet our friend Ghost, who we hiked with on the AT in 2005, for dinner and stay over to race Nordic Meisters tomorrow, we headed down to Portland to the Maine Running Company store to try on some Inov-8 shoes that we had heard about. We had gone down to the store last weekend, but they did not have our size so the nice woman on the floor indicated that she was planning an order anyway and would order our sizes and set them aside so we could have a chance to try them on. This company is really interesting, and several of the people in the trail running community around here, use various Inov-8 shoes. Snowman had done a fair amount of research and was really excited to try them out. The shoes are light but sturdy and a bit different in the amount of structure around the ankle, etc, but are made for trail/mountain running. Needless to say, we both walked out with a new pair of Inov-8 Roclite 315 shoes, and are very excited to start using them this spring on the trails!

A visit with family

After an easy 3-mile run with Snowman on the bike path on this beautiful blue sky morning, we had lunch at home with Mim, Susie, Jon and Lillie. Minestrone soup, salad, bread and a bit of wine. Yum. It was good to see them and nice to spend the afternoon chatting and catching up! Now we're back to relaxing on the couch. Tomorrow we're planning to do a long trail run at Bradbury State Park. Should be fun!

Speaking of family, I've taken to checking in on the pair of eagles that the Biodiversity Research Institute monitors via a live camera feed. This pair has nested on this particular spot along the Maine coast for 13 years and raised many offspring. They are getting ready to start nesting and so, are starting to spend time on the nest. It is really neat to tune in and see them on the nest! If you have the time, definitely take a look!

Whirlwind of Snow and Art in New York City

I got back late last night from a quick but busy trip to NYC with my boss and his wife. They nicely invited me along on a 2-day art-filled trip down to the "big city." The trip began at 3am on Friday morning, when I awoke to get myself ready to meet them at 4am for our drive down to the Amtrak station on Rt. 128 in MA. Luckily, I was a passenger on the car ride and slept most of the way! When we arrived at the station, it had just begun to snow and as we headed south on the train, we were even happier with the decision to not fly or drive down, as there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and even more swirling through the air as we sped through RI and CT. Traveling any other way would have no doubt meant some delay and frustration.

Arriving around 11am, we checked in the Surrey Hotel, a nice old-world feeling hotel on 76th near Central Park. The city, and particularly the park, looked beautiful covered with snow. After a quick lunch, we headed to the 67th Street Armory for the Art Dealers Association of America show. 70 dealers were set up in the Armory, showcasing their 'best of the best.' It was almost like going to a museum - we saw an Edward Hopper watercolor and several pencil studies for his larger oils; numerous Charles Burchfield watercolors; a William Zorach scultpure; mobiles by Alexander Calder; two oils by Fairfield Porter; two beautiful ink drawings by Henri Matisse; plus works by Andy Warhol, Walt Kuhn, Cy Twombley, Arthur Dove, Reginald Marsh, Guy Wiggins and many others. A neat mix of works.

After several hours at the show, we headed over to the MOMA, where admission was free on Friday nights starting at 4pm. We stopped in the museum cafe for an early dinner and a bit of a pick-me-up to fuel before our tour of the museum. I think the highlight of the visit was Matisse's "The Dance" but of course there were many other masterpieces to feast our eyes on. There was a neat exhibit of Lucien Freud's slightly distorted and disturbing thickly painted portraits along with etchings. However, as the crowds grew, the air grew thick and we had to escape... so we wandered up to the Whitney to see more art. The museum was pretty quiet and we took a quick tour of the open exhibits (many of the floors were closed in preparation for their Biennial opening in early March), before going back to the hotel to collapse into our beds (mine being the sofa sleeper).

Saturday started off with a 3 mile, 27 minute run on the treadmill in the hotel fitness center. I caught up on the news, including a clip of President Bush attempting to jive along with an African tribal dance, as I plodded along, all the while thinking how glad I was that I did not have to use the treadmill much for my training!

We were at the Met entrance by 9:30am, and spent two hours enjoying the art. You could literally spend days if not weeks in the Met, but we focused on the 19th and 20th century paintings. I could have stared at Van Gogh's "Irises" all day... A few other favorites of course included the museum's large collection of Monets and Degas, "Madame X" by John Singer Sargent, the long, gangly sculptures by Giacommeti,
a small Marsden Hartley of the Maine mountains...and on and on. What a wonderful collection.

Not wanting to waste a minute in the city, we headed to Chelsea, a rather seedy part of town, which has recently become populated with many contemporary galleries. This industrial section of town is being transformed; the brick buildings now hold gallery upon gallery. With only about an hour to explore, we only hit a fraction of the spaces, but saw enough to realize that we were pretty happy with the art we are currently exhibiting in our gallery. There was some interesting art out there, but nothing truly memorable. Regardless, it was fun to see the area and get a feel for the pulse of the New York art scene.

All in all, a full weekend of art! It was a great trip, but I am very happy to be back in Maine relaxing today! :-)