Trail Monster Running

Return to Bradbury

2009-11-28T20:27:00.001-05:00

Since hunting is allowed on the East Side of Bradbury Mountain State Park I haven't run there at all during the month of November, although other Trail Monsters have been going on Sundays, I just never go out there. I had been suffering from serious Bradbury withdrawal and decided that I needed to get out there on Saturday, and although it was still hunting season I figured we'd be okay if we stuck to the West Side trails where hunting isn't permitted. I wore some of my most obnoxiously bright colors to be sure I'd be seen just in case.

Given that this was the day before Blackstrap Hell II I didn't want to go out for too long or push the pace so I planned a relatively easy jaunt around one lap of the Breaker course. I say relatively easy because this has to be the most difficult loop within the whole park, no mater what pace you run it at it's never really going to be easy.

Emma came along but instead of running she brought our new Border Collie puppy Bolt for a hike up the mountain. She's only nine weeks old but we figured it wasn't too early to start getting her used to the Trail Monster lifestyle. In case anyone is wondering, she's named after Bolt. Not Bolt. We will wait about a year before taking her out running with us, but until then she'll be spending plenty of time walking in the woods with us.

Jim, Chuck and Lily came along for the run on the very wet trails. I was expecting mud but we were probably the first ones out on the trails since the torrential rain we received the day before so it was mostly puddles of clear water than we encountered. We managed to meet up with Emma on the summit and then headed off onto the Tote Road trail. From here I decided to jump onto Krista's Trail, a nice section of single track that I'd only run once or twice before, but I had forgotten how long it was. When I realized that Emma would probably be finished walking with Bolt long before me I decided to take a shortcut back the parking lot. Chuck joined me but Jim and Lily took the long way back.

It was great to wet my feet again on the trails of Bradbury and I was glad that Bolt made it all the way up to the top, although Emma had to carry her part of the way down. The pace actually felt quicker than the 10:27 that my Garmin reported, so I was glad that I didn't end up going any longer. I've had a lingering tightness in my right calf/achilles ever since Stone Cat and I didn't want to push it too much right before Blackstrap Hell II. I've found it hard to get back into a rhythym with my running since the Stone Cat 50, partly due to being busy at work and at home with a new puppy, but there seems to be a bit of a funk that I need to shake off and hopefully running hard at the race tomorrow will help do that.

time: 47:23
distance: 4.53 miles
pace: 10:27

weather: cool, overcast

conditions: wet, big puddles

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 290, wool socks, shorts, long sleeve shirt, singlet, hat

Pineland 10k

2009-11-14T21:38:00.002-05:00

A bit of a delayed write-up here, just trying to get back in the swing of things, and this is still not a race report for Stone Cat.

Following Stone Cat I decided to take a full week off from running to let myself recover. Normally I like to have an "active recovery" but given my work schedule during the following week, and the severely strained right calf muscle I was feeling for several days, taking a full week off seemed like the right thing to do. At about mile 14 of Stone Cat I tripped and manage to catch myself before falling but in the process made a sudden movement that caused my right calf muscle to completely lock up and I ended up falling down anyway. I massaged the muscle, swore a lot and managed to get back on my feet fairly quickly, but for the rest of the race (36 miles) it didn't feel quite right. As soon as I finished it got very tight again and didn't want to be forced into moving right away. It was actually pretty tough to take that much time off, and I almost didn't manage to go the whole week. I really think that a couple of easy runs would have helped.

But the way things worked out I didn't get out for a run until Saturday morning when I met Jim, Shauna, Jamie, Lily, and Dom at Pineland. My plan was to get in as close to 10k as possible. Erik and I are cooking up plans to expand upon the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge and turn it into a multi-day event with the addition of some shorter distance races, so I wanted to check out a possible 10k course. We started the way all the races currently do, basically from the YMCA onto the Campus Loop, up by the Visitors Center, down to the River Loop to the Yurt. This was about 3.5 miles of mostly downhill running, a great fast way to start a short race.

At this point everyone else was running longer and continued onto the Valley Farm Loop. I turned back on the other half of the River Loop and began the long gradual climb back up towards the YMCA. By this point I was starting to feel some tightness in my calf creeping up on me, but everything else was feeling fine. The pace was pretty comfortable, a little under 9's but that felt pretty easy on the mostly dowhill trails. By the time I reached 5 miles on the back side of the Camups Loop (with some steep climbs) I was really feeling some discomfort in my calf but decided another mile or so wasn't going to cause any damage and I really wanted to know how close this route would be to 10k.

It turned out to be just over 10k by my Garmin measurement, which might actually be a little longer than the race course because I started and finished from the YMCA parking lot and not from where the race would actually start and finish. But to be honest, I'm not really concerned if my 10k course is slightly long. Anyone who cares that much about precision course measurement shouldn't be running trails.

Although my calf acted up it still felt great to get out for a run, good weather and good company (at least for half my run).

time: 57:01
distance: 6.3 miles
pace: 9:02

weather: upper 40's, overcast

conditions: mostly dry, leaf covered trails

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 280, Smark Wool socks, shorts, t-shirt, Moeben Sleeves, hat

Stone Cat 50 Miler - Not a Race Report

2009-11-12T22:36:00.005-05:00

Last weekend I ran the Stone Cat 50 Mile Trail Race. This is not a race report. I wish it was but I just can't seem to find the time to say everything that needs to be said about this race. I will summarize by saying two things:

1- This was probably the best race of my life.

2- I couldn't have done as well as I did without the help of a lot of people.

I should clarify that I may have an unusual definition of what makes a good race. The 50k race that I ran three weeks ago was not a good race, despite finishing first. Stone Cat was a good race because I set myself a goal that I honestly didn't think I had any chance of coming close to (breaking 8 hours) and even though I didn't meet my goal I came closer than I thought I really could. I usually go into a race with three goals, one very optimistic, one very realistic and one to cover my ass. Typically I fall in the 'realistic' range, but many of my races so far this year have fallen in the 'cover my ass' category. This is the first time I can remember where I actually came close to my optimistic goal.

The other part of what made this such a great race for me is related to #2 above and will take a long time to explain, and will eventually appear in my full race report, but for now I want to thank all the people who helped me come close to reaching my optimistic goal. My fellow Trail Monsters have provided amazing inspiration and have been the best training companions, helping push me to places I never thought I could go. I was also grateful to see so many TM's come down to the race to support me and Mindy as we ran. It makes such an incredible difference to have friends lending a hand and providing encouragement during a long race.

This is a photo that Emma took at mile 45 of the race, just before she started pacing me to the finish. I am very lucky to have her as my wife and in many ways I feel like I owe everything I have achieved in running to her. She was my inspiration to start running, she paced me at my first 10k in 2001 and has been there for every milestone I passed since then. If it weren't for a lingering knee injury brought on by her stellar performance at Pineland earlier this year she would have been out there running with me, or more likely in front of me. For now she still holds the 50 mile record in our household, she has set the bar high but I'm still reaching for it.

Running the River

2009-10-31T18:27:00.004-04:00

For somewhat selfish reasons I decided to have our Saturday run start only a half mile from my home this week. It wasn't entirely selfish because there are some great trails around here and I'm sure other people enjoy running them as much as I do. I realized though that it's tough leading a group run when no one else (apart from Jeff) knows the trails. We did have a pretty good sized group show up today including Emma, Jeff, Mindy (+ Pete on a bike), Tim, BJ, Erik (+ Django), Stephen, Erik, Rachel (+ dog), Don, Jim... I think that's it. Of course I think it helped that we started from Bernie's and planned to have breakfast after the run.

I had hoped to get in 10 miles today but I had never run the route I planned so I wasn't sure how it would work out. Turns out to be only just over 8, and I could have extended it but after almost an hour and a half we were all ready for breakfast. The route we ran started from Hannaford on the North side of the Presumpscot River, we ran down to the river, crossed over to the south side and ran downstream for about 2.5 miles, turned around and came back to the north side, then ran along the Piscataqua River, turned around and headed back to Hannaford.

Although it was overcast it was actually a great day for running, pleasantly warm for a fall morning, and it was great to be running along the river.

time: 1:27:18
distance: 8.24 miles
pace: 10:36

Here comes the taper!

2009-10-22T21:38:00.004-04:00

I'm so glad to finally be tapering now. Not because I'm looking forward to doing less running, but it means that my big race is not that far away. Just over two weeks until Stone Cat!

I just counted, I've done 11 ultra-distance runs so far this year but I haven't raced a trail ultra. My only ultra race was the 50k last weekend and that was more of a training run, and it was on pavement. Yuck. It didn't turn out to be as much fun as I had hoped, mostly because I was in the middle of a bad cold and I ended up running most of the race alone. But I still think it was good training, particularly mentally, for Stone Cat. For the last 12.5 mile lap of the 50 miler I will probably be on my own.

My recovery from the 50k seems to be going well, although my cold is still lingering. It's hard to say if 4+ hours of running had an effect on my cold, it didn't make it any worse but it may have slowed the recovery a bit. Following the race my calves were pretty tight, my right femur felt a bit jammed up into my hip and my right foot was sore from the ankle down to the arch. Two days off from running and everything seemed pretty much back to normal thanks to a little stretching, icing and pulling on my leg.

On Wednesday evening I ran from work and did a lap of Back Cove. It was a beautiful evening, perfectly cool and comfortable shorts and t-shirt weather with a nice sunset. I could have happily run longer but knowing that I'm in taper/recover mode right now definitely didn't want to push it too much.

time: 29:14
distance: 3.85 miles
pace: 7:36

Tonight I ran from home on a "new" loop, mostly roads but got in 2 miles of hilly trails up the back side of the Three Bitches and down the front. I had forgotten that a stretch of the power-line trail that I ran doesn't get much traffic and is very overgrown, it slowed me down for a bit and got my feet wet but it was kinda fun. Once I got going on better trail there were still plenty of wet and muddy spots to jump over or run through. I went up to my knee at one point, which caught me off guard.

The steep downhill of the Three Bitches was a bit treacherous, I was wearing my Brooks Cascadia which aren't very good on wet rock. I wished I'd worn my sticky-rubber Inov-8 295. Interesting to note that this 7.8 mile run had more elevation change than the entire 50k I ran last weekend.
time: 1:04:03
distance: 7.81 miles
pace: 8:12

Maine Track Club 50K

2009-10-18T15:08:00.019-04:00

As my last long training run for the Stone Cat 50 miler I decided to run the MTC 50k in Brunswick this morning, another one of Erik's races. Even though it's a road race I thought it would be a good opportunity to get in some relatively fast-paced miles and not have to worry about carrying my own aid or making long stops to refuel on my own.

I had the somewhat foolish notion that I might be able to break 4 hours on this course, which under "normal" circumstances I might be able to pull off, but since I ran my ass off last week at the Mtn Epic race, and then followed that up with a nasty cold I wasn't really at the top of my game. I should have adjusted my race plan accordingly but didn't, and still set off with the intention of averaging a 7:44 pace for the whole run. At 18 miles my average pace was 7:45, pretty much on target, but things went downhill from there and the last 13 miles I averaged a 9:01 pace. Ouch!

The format of this race is a 4 mile loop that you run too many times (especially if you choose to run the 50 miler). To get to 31 miles everyone starts the race with a 1 mile out-and-back, 50k runners do 7x four mile laps, cross the finish line and then have to do a half mile out-and-back. I decided that this race was more about mental training than physical, since my physical race fell apart it was a real test of my mental ability to keep going when things became unpleasant and my goal was slipping away. And it didn't help that every 4 miles I crossed the finish line and ran past my car which provided an easy opportunity to drop out. By 22 miles I had already thought about the title for today's blog post: "My First DNF"

don't be fooled by those little lumps, this is a flat course

Here are my stats from the race, unfortunately my Garmin crapped out just after 25 miles so I guessed at my final lap splits, and I'm not sure exactly what my official finishing time was:

First 2 - 15:54 - 7:57 pace
Lap 1 - 30:43 - 7:40 pace
Lap 2 - 30:26 - 7:36 pace
Lap 3 - 31:17 - 7:49 pace
Lap 4 - 31:26 - 7:51 pace
Lap 5 - 33:05 - 8:16 pace
Lap 6 - 36:00 - 9:00 pace - ESTIMATE dead watch
Lap 7 - 39:00 - 9:45 pace - ESTIMATE
Last 1 - 9:00 pace - ESTIMATE

Total - 4:17:xx - 8:17ish pace

For the first half of the race (I was told) that I had a comfortable lead. No offense to the other runners taking part today but this race is very small, low-key and doesn't attract a lot of really fast runners. And I think most participants choose to run the 50 miler, or at least they set off with that intention. I have no idea how many people ran the 50k today, but at last year's race there were 18 finishers and the winning time was 4:23.

On my 4th lap, around mile 16, I started to slow down. Not significantly at first, but I was definitely starting to feel less good. My watch stopped displaying my mile splits and I couldn't read my total time, which was probably a good thing because it meant I didn't stress about how much I was slowing down. I hoped it was just a passing low spot, but despite consistently drinking and snacking during the run my energy was fading and all the hard road miles were beating the crap out of me. I did try to run as much of the race as possible on the dirt shoulder, and probably managed 1/4-1/3 of the race in the dirt but it was still my longest road run in well over a year.

At the end of lap 5 (22 miles) I was pretty much ready to drop out, but after taking a few minutes at the aid station talking to Erik - "Your races are killing me!" - I thought I'd do one more lap and call it a marathon. Of course when I finished the next lap I knew that I only had 5 more miles to go and figured I could continue on for a bit longer. That last lap was really not fun. My calves were tight and felt on the verge of cramping, my right hip was sore from the camber, my lungs felt like they weren't fully inflating. There's no way a 9:45 pace should have me feeling out of breath.

With about 1.5 miles to go I felt so bad that I decided to walk for a few minutes. Even though I was so close to the finish I just didn't see the point in pushing myself too hard on what was supposed to be a training run. Unfortunately someone else did see the point in pushing it and the woman who right behind me (2nd place in the race) took the opportunity to pass me. I totally lacked the motivation to put up a fight but I did start running again. I stayed about 50' behind her hoping that she was doing the 50 miler, but it didn't make sense. When we got to the 50k turnaround point with 1/2 mile to go back to the finish she turned and it was confirmed which race she was doing. I still lacked the motivation to put up a fight.

With about 1/4 mile to go Ed from GAC who was running the 50 miler passed going the opposite direction and shouted to me: "Don't let her do it to you Ian." This was just the motivation I needed to put on as much of a sprint finish as I could muster. I'm sure it wasn't impressive to look at, but it was just enough to regain the lead that I had held for the first 29.5 miles of the race. With a little guilt I finished about 3 seconds ahead of the first place woman.

While I was pretty excited to win the race I was pretty dissapointed at how much I slowed down over the last 13 miles. I was definitely still recovering from last weekend's race and the nasty cold I had... still have. All good training.

RESULTS and PHOTOS by Don Penta (as well as those above)

time: 4:17:24
distance: 31 miles
pace: 8:18
place: 1/17

weather: uper 30's to mid 40's, overcast, windy

conditions: flat-ass roads

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, SmartWool socks, 3/4 length tights, long sleeve shirt, sleeveless shirt, hat, handheld bottle

Mtn Epic 8 Peak Race

2009-10-11T21:19:00.001-04:00

First of all, congratulations to Erik for putting on a great race. I had a blast and I think most other runners did too. Erik was in charge of organizing three mountain races at Sunday River this past weekend, 1-peak 4 miles, 5-peaks 8 miles and 8-peaks 12 miles. I guess one race just isn't enough for him any more.

On Saturday afternoon after the Wife Carrying Championship Emma, Jim and I helped Erik finish off the course marking for Sunday's races. This was the first time Emma had seen some of these trails and even though she hadn't planned to race, wasn't feeling 100% (lingering knee trouble) and had vowed not to participate in a race until next summer she couldn't resist and signed up for the 4 mile, 1 peak race. I was doing the 8 peak race, Jim the 5 peak, and Shauna the 1 peak. There was a big contingent of other Trail Monsters who came up to compete in each of the races including James, Stephen, Bob, Tom, Jeanne, Chuck, Katy, George, Don, as well as many other familiar faces from the Bradbury Series.

I was feeling good about this race, after a summer of fairly disappointing race performances due to my lack of ability to cope with warmer humid weather I was really looking forward to racing in cooler temperatures. I've learned that 30-50 degrees is my optimum racing temperature range and that's just what we got on race day. I had also done a fair amount of mountain running/hiking this summer, and plenty of hilly trail and road runs that had me feeling confident about this race with about 3,800' elevation gain (and equal descent) over 12 miles.

My race strategy was to go out hard and keep pushing hard the whole way. Not too different than my usual approach to racing, except this time I actually thought I had a better chance of pulling it off without burning out near the end. Given my recent long training runs there certainly wasn't any reason to burn out in a 2-3 hour race. It also helped that I was just about the only person racing who knew the course. I set off fast and was surprised to find myself leading the way with Stephen for the first quarter mile. It wasn't long though before we hit the really steep climbing and the really strong mountain runners picked me off as we made our way up about 1500' in the first 2 miles. I knew that I had no right to be leading this race so I really didn't mind giving up those places early on, I just hoped that after we reached the top of the first peak I wouldn't lose any more.

Chuck was one of the runners who passed on the way up, and I knew that once we got to the long downhill stretch he'd pull away from me so I tried hard to keep close to him. Chuck credits years of downhill skiing for his amazing ability to run fast downhill, I guess when you stop being afraid of killing yourself going down a mountain it really allows for some fast running. Of course it helps having the strength to back it up.

From White Cap it there wasn't much up or down as we summited Locke and Barker peaks, but there was some nice rocky trail and single track. From Barker there was a good steady drop down to North Peak along dirt access road, a short stretch of Scottish looking hillside and then more fast running down dirt road to the base of Jordan Bowl.

Around mile 5 I caught up to Chuck and Stephen, who had gotten away from me on the downhill, now that we were starting our second long climb of the race. James also caught up to us, as well as Billy whom I had met at Bradbury this summer (or did we catch up to him?). The five of us stuck together, more or less, moving up the hill like an accordion, spreading out and then bunching up again. I don't think anyone was modifying their pace for the sake of staying together but as soon as someone fell back a bit there was always the motivation to push the pace enough to avoid getting left behind.

This second climb was easier than the first, covering only about 1000' in two miles to the summit of Spruce Peak, then an easy run on single track to Aurora Peak. We dropped down a little bit and then made a very steep climb up 400' more to the summit of Oz which is the highest point on the course, a little over 3,100'. As we approached the summit of Oz we were passed by another runner coming towards us who had already tagged the turnaround point on this short out-and-back stretch. I hadn't seen him since he passed me early on in the first climb but it looked like we were making up ground on him and I hoped we'd be able to catch him on the long downhill that was coming up. The course took a little dip down, then another very short climb to the final peak of the race Jordan Bowl. 4 more miles to go, 2100' all downhill.

The first 1.5 miles of this descent drop 1300' with an average grade of about 16%. I've decided this is just a little bit too steep to run comfortably for the amount of time it took. But races aren't about being comfortable, so I let gravity do it's thing and tried to keep my legs turning over as fast as I possibly could. Chuck and Stephen quickly pulled away from me and James passed me somewhere near the bottom of this crazy slope. I kept them in my sights and as the dirt road leveled out I began to close back in on them. It felt like I'd dislodged a kidney and perhaps a few other internal organs but my legs were holding up reasonably well to all the pounding.

Most of the last two miles of this race (all three of the races in fact) are on tight single track trails with plenty of tight turns and bumps and a few muddy patches. Based on all the running I've been doing at Bradbury this year I figured this kind of stuff ought to be my strength so I went to work catching back up to James, Stephen and Chuck. Many of the slower 4 mile runners were still on this stretch of trail (they had started an hour after us) which made for an additional challenge trying to get around them. I did end up passing James and Stephen but once we left the wooded single track for the final push on easier trail the order changed again, but we did stick pretty close together. Since none of the others knew exactly how close to the finish we were I instructed the other Trail Monsters to "put the hammer down" when I knew we were about 1/4 mile from the finish.

Of course this race wasn't going to end in an all out sprint, we had to negotiate the obstacle course of the Wife Carrying Championship before reaching the finish line and we all knew that we would be judged on our performance, not just our speed. I hit the log hurdle, planted my hands and did a sideways cartwheel, ran up to the edge of the mud pit and did a somersault flip into the waist deep water, dove over the sand pile and did a barrel roll landing and somehow managed to get back on my feet just in time to cross the finish line. What a brilliant way to end a race!

Jim after executing a perfect "laid out ass flop" into the mud pit

I ended up finishing in 2 hours 3 minutes, coming in 10th place overall. I actually think that this was my best race of the year. I ran hard, felt good, had good company, and turned out a time that I was really happy with. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Oh yeah, Emma finished first place female in the 4 mile race so that was pretty sweet too!

MORE PHOTOS and RESULTS

Splits:
11:21, 17:47, 7:47, 7:20, 9:35, 15:57, 10:30, 14:06, 6:48, 6:56, 8:28, 6:50

time: 2:03:27
distance: 12.04 miles
pace: 10:13
place: 10/54

weather: mid 40's to mid 50's, mix of sun and clouds, windy

conditions: mountains, rocks, gravel, grass, dirt, mud...

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 280, Balega socks, shorts, sleeveless shirt, Moeben Sleeves, hat, handheld bottle

2009 NAWCC

2009-10-10T17:55:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday Emma and I took part in the North American Wife Carrying Championship at Sunday River. We beat Joe Decker, "The World's Fittest Man". You can see him eating sand in this VIDEO.

This was our fourth year competing in the wife carrying competition, we traveled up with Jim and Shauna who were competing for their second time (they took most of the photos below). Non-married types are allowed, and of the participants who are married I doubt many have been married as long as we have (10 years). I've noticed that there's something about marriage that makes many wives un-carry-able by their husbands after a few years (or husbands unable to carry their wives), so I've always thought that if they are going to call it the Wife Carrying Championship that participants should be married to each other.

Game face.

As soon as we arrived we heard the buzz going around that "The World's Fittest Man" was here competing this year. After checking in we went to check out the competition and not only did we find "The World's Fittest Man", we also found another team comprised of a guy who looked like he could beat the crap out of the "The World's Fittest Man" with a wife just about as tough. I decided that after last year's performance, and given the apparent level of competition, I'd be happy just to get through this race without dropping Emma.

I don't think out matching tops were going to do anything to help us win today.

Fezzik and Buttercup about to start their race.

We were up against a guy wearing antlers, who didn't look fast but he did look strong, and those are the types of guys that do well in this race. I decided that being a runner does virtually nothing to improve my chances at winning this race.

I ran the first 100 yards at a "comfortable" pace while moose-man sprinted out of the gate incredibly fast. I knew that there would be plenty of opportunity to make up ground once we hit the obstacles on the course.
The first obstacle is a 36" high log hurdle. We had been practicing going over wooden barriers in a local parking lot so we had this technique down pretty good and made up a little time here. (that's not us in this photo)

Moose-man ran into the waist-deep water pit way too fast, did a belly flop and dropped his girlfriend. It was a classic tortoise and hare scene, I just kept a steady pace through the water and passed moose-man while he tried to get his wet and pissed-off girlfriend onto his back.

The final obstacle was a 4' high pile of sand, and we had also practiced traversing similar terrain so we were able to cruise over this without any trouble and "sprint" to the finish. I'm pretty sure this was our fastest time ever, one minute and five seconds. It was definitely our highest place finish, 8th out of 40 teams.

RESULTS

Ultra Xtreme Bradbury Badass #2

2009-10-04T18:53:00.012-04:00

For a few days last week I had contemplated running the Maine Marathon this weekend, but a few helpful Trail Monsters made me see the error in this way of thinking. I wanted to get another long run in this weekend and the marathon seemed like a convenient option but I realized that racing a road marathon wouldn't really help with my 50 mile trail race training as much as a long trail run. Since it had been a few weeks since I'd run at Bradbury I decided to make another attempt at the Ultra Xtreme Bradbury Badass by running all three courses of the Bradbury Mountain Trail Running Series races back to back.

Unlike the last time I did this run I didn't expect to have any company for the whole time and given the weather forecast for steady rain all day I wasn't sure who would show up at all. Mindy, Valerie and James decided to brave the weather, which wasn't bad at all when we arrived at the park at 8am and we headed out together soon after on the Scuffle course. It turned out that I hadn't picked up all the course markings from the Bruiser a few weeks ago so as we ran along we found a few flags and arrows along the way to pick up and carry with us. I realized that this picking up was slowing us down a bit so about halfway through the Scuffle James and I picked up the pace a little bit and pulled away from Valerie and Mindy. Running with hands full may have been to blame for slowing us down or it may have been something else (lack of motivation?) but we finished the 6 mile Scuffle course in 1:04, 2 minutes slower than when I had run this with Chuck and Jeremy back in June.

Not that it really mattered but I did hope to run these 27 miles today a little faster than before so after a quick drink stop James and I headed out on the Breaker course and I made a conscious effort to run up all the hills and really let loose on the downs. I wasn't sure if I could manage to run all the way up the summit trail, the hardest climb on the course but I set off with the intention of running as far as I could and would let myself walk if I had to. To my own surprise I managed to "run" the whole way, although at times I'm sure it wasn't any faster than a walking pace and I was just wasting energy.

I can't remember exactly when it started raining, but once it started it didn't stop and at times it was coming down pretty hard, but it was a pleasant temperature and it's always fun to splash though the mud.

Near the end of the first lap of the course, at the bottom of the Switchback Trail, someone has rerouted the trail and extended it slightly. Not that there was anything wrong with where the trail went before IMO, perfectly dry...

Anyway, the second lap of the breaker was much the same as the first, perhaps a little wetter. James was good company but he was running out of time and decided he would have to stop his run at the end of the Breaker. This of course introduced the idea in my head that I might also stop here, go home and get dried off and warmed up. This thought kept creeping back into my mind, like when we were running up the Summit Trail for the second time, but gracious downhills of the last few miles of this course helped to remind me how much fun it is to run at Bradbury and I was determined to finish this run whatever it took. We finished the Breaker in 1:30, 6 minutes faster than the last time.

I said goodbye to James and took a few minutes to refill the bladder in my hydration pack for the long 12 miles of the Bruiser. After standing in the rain I started to feel a bit chilled so I changed my soaking short sleeved shirt for a dry long sleeved shirt and set off alone into the woods.

It wasn't long before I started to feel the effects of pushing the pace on the hills of the Breaker and I started to care much less about beating my time from before and just focused on enjoying the beautiful colors of fall, and enjoying the mud. The miles ticked by and I was reminded of the Bruiser when Bob and Tom were right on my tail for the entire race. I worked hard not to let them pass and that feeling motivated me to keep going when I started feeling tired.

I found a few more orange flags out on the course that I missed from race day and picked them up as I went along. Kind of a pain in the ass, or more literally a pain in the abs. Like doing stomach crunches at the end of a long run. There was an arrow sign out there too, and the last thing I wanted to do was to carry extra crap in my last few miles but it had to be picked up and I felt bad that I had taken me so long to get back out there to do it. There was no way I was going to carry this stuff through the O-Trail so when I got to the entrance I ran ahead to the exit of the trail and dropped everything there, then back up to the entrance for the funnest part of the run.

The rain from today was really encouraging the trees to drop their leaves and the O-Trail was quickly becoming obscured. Even though I know this trail well it's a bitch to follow when it's covered in leaves and there were a few moments when I was convinced I had gone off trail and gotten back on going the wrong direction, but I kept passing familiar landmarks in the right sequence so I knew I was doing okay. Shortly after passing the red bracket fungus indicating 1 mile to go I had the notion of picking up the pace for the final mile, but was quickly reminded that the combination of tired-sloppy-feet and wet, leaf-covered trails leads to close encounters between face and ground. I tripped and I started to fall. I thought I could pull myself out of it, then thought I'd probably give myself a hernia trying so I just let myself flop down in the dirt. Luckily I landed in one of those rare spots on the O-Trail where there aren't any rocks or roots. Except for the one I tripped over. It was actually quite comfortable.

I got up and got back into that 11:30 O-Trail pace, no sprint for me, until I popped out onto the Knight Woods Trail. Of course I had to pick up that pile of flags and signs to carry with me for the final 1/4 mile so my sprint finish was probably lucky to have been under a 10 minute pace. Much to my surprise though I finished the Bruiser in 2:14, which was 5 minutes faster than the previous time. Despite a slow start I ended up completing this run with a new personal best of 4 hours and 48 minutes.

I'll take this over a road marathon any day.

Scuffle: 1:04
Breaker: 1:30
Bruiser: 2:14

total time: 4:48:18
distance: 27.2 miles
pace: 10:35

weather: mid 50's, rain of varying intensities

conditions: wet trails, many puddles, plenty of mud

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 280, Wright Socks, shorts, t-shirt then long sleeve shirt, hat, Nathan HPL #020

It's a good thing I don't have a training schedule

2009-10-04T17:48:00.004-04:00

It's a good thing I don't have a training schedule because I'd never be able to follow it. My midweek runs didn't play out anything like I thought they might, but I still had a pretty good week.

TMR TNR

Jeff had the idea of doing 800 meter repeats, so after about 2.75 miles of our regular route we ran the "A Loop" fast and it turned out to be exactly 1/2 mile by our Garmin measurements so we decided to make this our repeat loop with an easy 2 minute recovery in the grassy fields between each rep. I was feeling good after my weekend without a long run so decided to wear my Vibram Five Fingers for this run. This was the first time I've tried speed work in Vibrams and luckily we were on a pretty easy trail so I didn't have to worry too much about stubbing a toe or stepping on a sharp rock. There was the additional challenge of quickly fading daylight, and during the last repeat it was pretty damn dark in the woods but it didn't effect my speed. The "A Loop" has some of the best hills at TB and if I had been wearing shoes with good grip as opposed to the Vibram slicks I may have been a little more efficient and perhaps quicker but since I pretty much never do speed work I wasn't really concerned.

1/2 mile repeats: 3:32, 3:35, 3:25, 3:19

time: 54:39
distance: 6.41 miles
pace: 8:32

Wednesday

I was in Farmington for a meeting in the afternoon and Jeff had suggested I check out the trails at Titcomb Mountain. This sounded like a good idea at first but when I got out of my meeting at 6pm at got to the mountain I realised there was very little daylight left, I didn't have a headlamp and I really didn't want to get lost on unfamilar trails so I headed home without getting a run in for the day.

Thursday

My boss picked me up at 7:30 am to head back to Farmington which meant that after returning to our office in the afternoon I was without transportation to get home except for my own two feet. Luckily I had brought my running stuff with me so after work I ran a lap of Back Cove and then home. For quite a while I had been thinking that I needed to get in a midweek run over 10 miles but never managed to fit it in, but since I was able to combine the run with getting home I was fianlly able to make it work. Nice cool conditions, lovely evening for a run.

time: 1:20:12
distance: 10.27 miles
pace: 7:48

Friday

Since I arranged to meet Emma after work in Portland I decided to run to work in the morning to avoid us each having a car in town. I packed a bag with my work clothes and lunch, and gave myself a little under an hour to get there. Interestingly, I guess, it turned out to be exactly 10k from door to door as measured by my Garmin. It was a nice morning for a run, but the route pretty much sucked because of all the traffic going into Portland and the busy intersections I had to get through. Not the most enjoyable run but it was convenient.

time: 48:11
distance: 6.2 miles
pace: 7:47

I didn't really want to run both Thursday and Friday, Friday is usually one of my days off from running since I usually pack a lot of running in on the weekend. I don't like the idea of running 4 days in a row but that's how it was going to work out this week. I've always been a relatively low-mileage runner and even when I'm running 5 days a week, which it pretty much the most I'll ever do I never run more than 3 consecutive days. Oh well.

A Solid Training Week

2009-09-29T21:05:00.007-04:00

No long run last week, but it was a good week of training. Probably a good thing to step back a notch after my trail marathon training run last week, and hopefully this week I'll be able to step it up again and get another marathon distance run in. I'm feeling pretty good about how my training for the Stone Cat 50 miler is going. Here's what the week looked like:

TMR TNR

Not a lot of time tonight, so I just did the "regular" part of the run without the barefoot afterward. No watch so I don't know what the time or distance was, probably about 5.6 miles at somewhere around a 9 minute pace. I was definitely feeling a little tired from the previous weekend's efforts, no problems luckily, just feeling the effects of the miles. It's started to get dark noticeably earlier now, it won't be long before we need to start bringing headlamps to the TNR.

Thursday + Friday

Thursday morning I got up before work to run the 5.6 mile Mountain Loop (road) from home. I was feeling bit sluggish, mostly due to the fact that it was early and running uphill for the first 3 miles. The downhill side of the run felt better but not terribly fast, still in "recovery" mode.

Friday was the same loop, different story. I didn't get out the door until about 7pm and it was pretty much dark, I was also getting hungry for dinner so I decided to go hard and get back home as soon as I could. Finally - not that it had been that long - I was feeling fully recovered from last weekend's runs and was ready to run fast. I didn't start out too fast but I did really push it on the uphill miles of the run and then let loose on the down. Unfortunately since it was dark and I was running on a fairly busy rural road without a paved shoulder I found myself stepping off into the dirt shoulder every time a car came at me and blinded me with their lights. This made it hard to run consistently fast when I couldn't see my footing, but I still managed a pace that I was very happy with.

Thursday AM

time: 44:49
distance: 5.65 miles
pace: 7:55

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister

Friday PM

time: 39:58
distance: 5.65 miles
pace: 7:04

gear: Brooks Cascadia

Saturday AM

I thought briefly about running the Pathfinders 5k at Pineland on Saturday, but realized that wouldn't do much for my 50 miler training so I decided to get there early, get in about 12 miles and then watch the race. It turned out to be (probably) the coldest morning so far this early fall and there was a frost on all the grassy fields. Very pretty.

I had hoped someone else would show early to join me for the run but perhaps it was too early (or cold) for anyone else. I started with the Oak Hill trails for 4.5 miles and then ran the first part of The Race course minus the overgrown fields and got in another 8.5 miles. I wasn't pushing the pace too much, but probably a little faster than my usual Pineland pace. Although this was also a little shorter than my usual Pineland distance so that's probably to be expected.

I got back to the Visitors Center just in time to see the start of the race and jogged around a little bit to see runners a few places along the course and then at the finish. After seeing this small group of runners working hard and getting very out of breath I decided I'd rather do a 50k here any day than a 5k. In a 50k you get to run slowly and walk up the hills. In a 5k you have to run fast the whole time.

time: 1:49:33
distance: 12.92
pace: 8:28

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 295

Sunday AM

Sunday morning Emma and I met up with our Trail Monster neighbors, Jeff and James, for a local trail run (with a little road at the beginning and end). It was a little cold and there was a steady rain but it was so nice to be running with Emma again that I really didn't mind.

I thought this was a fairly hilly route, but James assured me that it's not. Either way we were taking it at a pretty easy pace which I was happy with. I had to remind myself that this was as "easy" week and that next week I'd step it back up with another long run.

This 11+ mile loop has a great mix of terrain, and once again I wished I had brought my camera, although the rain wouldn't have allowed for very good photos.

time: 1:58:29
distance: 11.37
pace: 10:25

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 295

As I look ahead to this upcoming weekend I'd like to get another marathon distance training run in and it just so happens that there is a marathon happening in Portland this weekend. Unfortunately it's a road race. It's still very tempting to sign up, I just can't decide if it's the best thing for my training or not. I'm a little concerned that a road marathon would take too much out of me and that it would take too long to recover from. It's been 5 years since I last ran a road marathon (this same one) and even though I had a pretty good race I decided after that race that I didn't ever want to do a marathon again. Hmmm.

The other thing I need to consider is that the following weekend is the Mountain Epic race at Sunday River. "Only" 12 miles but it's going to be one hell of an effort. Then the weekend after that is the MTC 50k in Brunswick, another road race! What's happening to me? Is this road running really going to help me at Stone Cat? I do think that getting in long runs at a faster than trail race pace could help me achieve that 50 mile PR I'm looking for. The question is could I do just as well with all trail training and with less abuse on my body? I haven't comitted to either of these road races yet, but there is a good chance I'll do one or both of them.

Running On Tired Legs

2009-09-20T18:08:00.009-04:00

Yesterday's run left me feeling pretty tired, but I did a good job of refueling afterwards and I woke up feeling good this morning (no signs of shin splints). I decided to wait until the afternoon to do my run, partly to allow it to warm up a bit outside but also because Emma and I still have a lot of unpacking to do, and yardwork. For some reason I had the hardest time deciding what kind of a run I wanted to do today, I knew I wanted to get in about 10, but couldn't decide where to go. In the interest of time I eventually decided that I would hit the roads, I figured a 10 mile trail run could take me close to 2 hours. So I decided on a 9.6 mile road loop from home, which from now on I will refer to as the K-9 loop because the map reminds Mary of K-9 from Dr. Who.

I didn't intend for this to be a difficult workout, since I got one in yesterday, but once I got going I was feeling pretty good and I decided that in the interest of getting in some solid training for the Stone Cat 50 miler I would push the pace a little bit to get used to the feeling of running on tired legs. I was really surprised to find that after the second mile I was feeling really good and there were no lingering effects from yesterday's marathon effort.

SPLITS:

7:52 - downhill, getting loosened up
7:52 - uphill, hard work
7:30 - flat
7:23 - flat, comfortable cruising speed
7:09 - downhill
7:23 - killer uphill
7:15 - flat, but recovering from mile 6
7:03 - downhill
4:41 - 0.6 mile uphill
6:55 - up, then downhill finish

This run really left me with a good feeling about my training, I just hope I can hold it together for the next month. I really want to do well at Stone Cat, and being a relatively flat course (for a trail ultra) I figured that the road miles would help. I also plan to run the MTC 50K race that Erik puts on in October, it's a road race, but should be a good last long run before Stone Cat. If all goes well I should be able to turn out a good PR for 50 miles, Stone Cat was my first 50 two years ago, I ran 10 hours 10 minutes and I'd like to think I could take at least an hour off of that time this year.

time: 1:11:09
distance: 9.65 miles
pace: 7:22

weather: 70 degrees, clear sky, beautiful

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, Balega socks, shorts, t-shirt, Fuel Belt

West Falmouth Trail Marathon - Getting Lost in Windham

2009-09-19T21:46:00.012-04:00

After Thursday's evening ru n around Back Cove in Vibram Five Fingers I was left with hot spots on the balls of my feet and shin splints that ached all day Friday. The shin splints were bad enough that I started worrying about stress fractures, which was strange because I'd done longer runs in the Vibrams before, at TB and around Back Cove so not sure what the problem was. Anyway, I felt bad enough that I decided to scrap my plans for a run right after work on Friday in hopes that I'd go into my Saturday run feeling good.

My original plan for Saturday was to head up to Sunday River for another run on the course of the Mountain Epic, but at the last minute when I realized no one else was going, and that 4 hours of driving was not the best way to spend my time, I decided to scrap that plan. Instead I decided to join the other TMR Saturday run which was scheduled to meet at Lowell Pre serve in Windham, and to ensure I got in a long run I decided to run from home along a 7.6 mile route there and back. I'd never been to Lowell Preserve before but I had heard Blaine mention it several times so was looking forward to finally checking it out for myself.

I left home a little before 7am and had about 1.7 miles of relatively flat pavement before turning onto powerline trails that took me up part of Blackstrap Hill to the top of Leighton Hill. A few wet spots and one overgrown area but generally the trails were dry and in good shape for running. The terrain was all kinds of rocky, from gravel to big loose rocks to sheer rock faces. I wished I had brought my camera, the views were great.

After 4 miles of powerline trails I came out to Blackstrap Road, which I had crossed earlier, and followed this to Babbidge Road which lead to the East Windham Fire House where the trail head for the Lowell Preserve is located. About 2 more miles of road running although I managed to run much of it on the dirt shuolder, a total of 7.6 miles from home. Here I met Jami e and Jeff and after a short break (for me) we set off exploring.

Hard to believe that the squiggly bit at the top of the route map represents over 11 miles, and the long tail is 7.6 each way.

Our route in (and out of) Lowell Preserve.

The terrain in the Preserve what somewhat varied, with the most consistent feature being large rocks scattered everywhere. It was clear that this land had never been cleared for farming. The trails are a mix of double and single track, laid out with many short segments that come together at a lot of intersections with multiple ways to go. There are numbers at many intersections as well as maps, which obviously helps in finding your way around, but makes for a lot of stops during the run. I'd say it's much more difficult to find your way around here than compared to Bradbury, because the trails here are shorter with more options for which way to go.

After a little more than 5 miles Jamie decided to head back due to shin splints flaring up, glad to see that he is being smart in his return to running and not pushing too much too soon. Luckily for me I wasn't feeling any of the pain that I had been the day before. Jeff and I continued on for another 6 miles, covering much of the ground that we had already, in both directions thinking that we must have covered every inch of trail in this place. Jeff pointed out later, however, that we had missed one rather significant trail. At least we'll have something new to explore the next time.

Jeff ended his run at about 11.3 miles, I took a little break to refill the bladder in my hydration pack and take a few bites of a protein bar. My jaw was still sore from a dentist appointment on Thursday which made chewing very difficult, but my energy level was good so I didn't mind not eating much. I had been running for a little over 3 hours and thought briefly about asking Jeff for a ride home, but that thought quickly left my mind when I thought about how much I'd suffer at the Stone Cat 50 miler if I didn't get in some good long training runs.

I took the same way home that I ran out, was tempted to do a little exploring but really didn't want to extend the run longer than a marathon distance and hadn't prepared nutritionally for much more than a 4 hour run. Although I had felt pretty tired when I finished running with Jeff I perked up a bit with the faster pace and easier terrain of the first few miles of the return run. At about the time I reached 20 miles I began to feel a slight twinge of shin splints coming on but it never got to the point that it was actually painful.

With about 4 miles to go I hit the hill known as the Three Bitches. I expected that I would have to walk most of this hill but I actually felt pretty good and ran the whole way. The way down on the other side was pretty slow though as I didn't have a lot of strength left in my legs for fast downhill running. When I got to the paved road that lead the last 1.7 miles to home I picked the pace up as much as I comfortably could and ran the very last mile of the run at just under an 8 minute pace, my fastest of the day, albeit the easiest mile.

time: 4:16:43
distance: 26.5 miles
pace: 9:41

weather: low 40's to low 60's, beautiful

conditions: mostly dry trails, a few swampy spots

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 315, Balega socks, shorts, long sleeve shirt, hat, Nathan HPL #020

Evening Flat

2009-09-17T21:14:00.002-04:00

After work I headed out for my second run of the day, not feeling as fresh as I would have liked but I thought I could get in two laps of back cove. The weather was great, I love running when it's in the 50's. Everything was going well but about halfway around Back Cove I could feel a hot spot developing on the ball of my right foot, just behind my big toe. I've had this problem before wearing Vibrams on Back Cove, and it turned into full fledged blisters then, so I decided to finish after just one lap to keep my foot from getting messed up.

I wore my Vibrams to the TMR TNR this week, the second time I've done this and everything was fine then. It seems that the softer surface, and probably the irregularity as well, of TB is a lot easier on the soles of my feet. Back cove is too firm, too regular and leads to too much friction. Or something like that. I guess I'll stick to proper shoes on BC for a while, and wear the Vibrams on proper trails.

time: 29:00
distance: 3.8 miles
pace: 7:37

weather: sunny, upper 50's

gear: Vibram Five Finger KSO, shorts, t-shirt, hat

Morning Hill

2009-09-17T07:41:00.005-04:00

I didn't manage to get in a run in last night so I decided that I would try to do a double today. It was tough but I got up earlier than usual this morning and was out the door by 6am. I know it's not that early really, but I've been used to sleeping in a bit later over the past few weeks. I picked a road loop, knowing that it was going to be up for the first half and down for the second...

I started out slowly as I was still trying to wake up and adjust to the cooler temps, but by the time I got to the top of Blackstrap Hill my legs were ready for a quicker turnover. Splits: 8:28, 8:11, 8:04, 7:13, 6:55

Twice I passed entrances to trails that run along the power lines and gas line, and it was tough to resist the draw to go exploring but I really didn't give myself enough time this morning.

I'll probably do a lap or two of Back Cove after work tonight, we'll see.

time: 42:58
distance: 5.6 miles
pace: 7:40

weather: cloudy, great sunrise, low 50's

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, Wright Socks, shorts, long-sleeve shirt, hat

Too Busy to Train

2009-09-10T18:34:00.002-04:00

My 50 miler training isn't going to plan. Actually, I don't have a plan, but if I did then it would include more long runs than I've been doing. After scrapping the long run on Friday I hoped to get it in on Sunday, but since Mrs. Trail Monster and I just bought a house and are in the middle of moving I ended up with only a short road run on Sunday.

Sunday: roads - Falmouth to Portland
time: 57:00
distance: 7.8 miles
pace: 7:30

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister

Tuesday: TMR TNR
time: 1:18:22
distance: 8.8 miles
pace: 8:54

gear: Inov-8 Flyroc 310

Wednesday: roads - Falmouth
time: 1:12:30
distance: 9.6 miles
pace: 7:33

gear: Brooks Cascadia

Thursday: trails - Bradbury (Bruiser course marking)
time: 1:18:00
distance: 8.0
pace: 9:45

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 295

No long run for me this week with the Bruiser coming up on Sunday. I may try to run the course on Friday, mark the course (with plenty of help hopefully) on Saturday, then run some or all of the course later on Saturday, then race it on Sunday. This should make for a good solid week of training, but without the long run. Hopefully next weekend I'll have the time for a good 4-5 hour long trail run!

Cruisin' for a Bruisin'

2009-09-05T22:21:00.004-04:00

To make up for yesterday's half-assed attempt at a long run I decided I wanted to run the Bruiser course at Bradbury relatively hard this morning. My goal was to break 2 hours, which I didn't think would be too hard to do, but I usually never run the 12 mile course that fast in training.

Emma and I were joined this morning by Valerie, Lily, Jeff, Brett, Sara and Owen. We stuck together pretty well for the first 2 miles but then we started to get spread out a bit and by 6 miles Emma, Owen and I pulled away from the rest of the group. Some of our slowest miles were the early ones, we were averaging slower than a 10 minute pace and I couldn't figure out how we were going to pick it up enough to average better than 10's. It's amazing how a 10+ minute pace can feel fast, and like a lot of work on those trails.

The middle section of the race course contains some of the easier miles and we were able to pick the pace up. Emma hadn't originally intended to run at my pace but she was worried about losing her way so she decided to stick with my plan. Owen didn't seem to have any trouble keeping up despite this being his first time running with us (and at Bradbury).

I had stopped checking my watch by the time we entered the O-Trail, didn't need any distractions, so I wasn't sure how close we were to meeting my goal. I was actually surprised that we did manage to break 2 hours, but relieved that what felt like a lot of effort actually paid off. I still don't understand how some people run this course as fast as they do, 1:29 was the winning time at last year's Bruiser!

time: 1:53:38
distance: 12 miles
pace: 9:28

weather: low to upper 70's, clear

conditions: unbelievably dry for Bradbury

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 280, Balega socks, shorts, t-shirt, hat, Fuel Belt

Pineland Cut Short

2009-09-04T22:00:00.003-04:00

Emma and I planned to do a long run together this week, and since she's working this weekend we decided to do it on Friday. Unfortunately this turned out to be the hottest day of the week.

I hate to say it but I've had enough of this hot weather. I miss the cool temperatures that we had last week. I'm sick of getting drenched in sweat every time I run. It's not fun any more.

We originally planned to do 22 miles, but a few miles into the run it became clear that a long run wasn't in the cards for us today. We decided to stop while we were still feeling good rather than push through uncomfortable conditions just to log the miles.

We tried a new drink today, Succeed Ultra. But I guess we didn't need it since we ended up with such a short run. I guess it was a good way to try it out though, seemed pretty good.

It also didn't help that a few sections of trail were closed. Not that this was a really big deal, but it kinda threw us off a bit.

time: 1:25:53
distance: 8.83 miles
pace: 9:43

weather: high 70's to low 80's, sunny, clear, hot

conditions: mostly dry, some light mud

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 295, Balega socks, shorts, singlet, hat, Nathan HPL #020

8 Peaks of Sunday River

2009-09-02T18:00:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday I headed up to Sunday River for a run on the 12 mile Mountain Epic course. I had run part of the course earlier in the year with Erik (the RD), but I knew very little about the first few miles that climb up from South Ridge Lodge to the summit of White Cap. As it turned out I screwed that part up pretty good and found myself on the top of Locke Mountain after about 35 minutes. It was only a short run over to White Cap, and then back again along the correct path of the course and I was able to follow the course without any trouble for the rest of the way.

So after White Cap it was a run along the ridge to Locke Mt and then Barker Mt, then a long downhill stretch that hit North Peak along the way and finished up at the base of Jordan. Then began the second big climb of the race all the way up to the summit of Spruce Peak. From Spruce there was a nice little stretch of Single track over to Aurora Peak, then a little drop before making another climb up to the top of Oz which is the highest point on the whole course. Unfortunately this peak has a lot of tree cover and the views aren't as good as many of the other peaks. Oz to Jordan was pretty easy, but I still took the opportunity to catch my breath here and get something to eat before continuing on.

The summit of Jordan comes about 8 miles into the race, and then it's 4 miles of downhill to the finish, and the first two miles are steep enough to trash your quads if you're running hard. I took it relatively easy, knowing that the last 1.5 miles are on gnarly single track I wanted to save something for the finish. Despite running conservatively I was definitely feeling a bit fatigued near the end and I took a good digger on a sharp bend in the single track. Luckily the ground was soft and I bounced back up pretty quickly. It will definitely be interesting to see how people handle these trails at the end of the 12 mile race.

I had somewhat arbitrarily decided that I wanted to run the course in under 3 hours, since no one has ever run it from beginning to end I wasn't sure what to expect but I was happy to finish a few minutes under the 3 hour mark. I'd like to think that in the race I could easily take 20 to 30 minutes off my time since I won't be stopping to take pictures and I won't have to try to figure out where to go. I was caught off guard by how hot it turned out to be this day, I was expecting temperatures in the mid 60's but it got up into the high 70's which made it a little more challenging when trying to run up mountains. I carried with me a hydration pack with 100 ounces of water, and surely the weight was somewhat of a factor that I won't have to deal with during the race.

I also took some video during my run and I hope to get that edited and posted this weekend.

For more info about the race coming up on October 11th visit the race website: www.mountain-epic.com

time: 2:56:35
distance: 12.32 miles
pace: 14:19
elevation: about 3,500' each way

weather: mid to upper 70's, clear and sunny

conditions: mostly dry, some wet patches, some overgrown areas, very mixed terrain

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 295, cycling socks, shorts, t-shirt, EMS Mantis Hydration Pack

TMR TNR

2009-09-01T22:30:00.001-04:00

I arrived a little early to the Tuesday Night Run this week to get in about 2.75 miles before everyone else showed up. Now that I'm finally focusing on and training for an ultra this fall (Stone Cat 50 miler) I want to step up my weekly mileage. I had hoped to get there early enough to run the whole Craig Cup 5k course but didn't give myself enough time. Which I guess means I was running too slow.

We had a good sized group tonight and I think for the first time ever had more women than men! Well, maybe it's not the first time, but it's still nice that we're getting some new people coming along.

I rediscovered an old pair of Inov-8's before heading out for the run, they were muddy but still in pretty good shape so I cleaned them up, and then proceeded to re-mud them. Between my early run, the regular run and the barefoot afterwards I ended up with a little over 9.5 miles, hopefully next week I'll get it up to 10.

time: 1:22:23
distance: 9.56 miles
pace: 8:37

gear: Inov-8 Flyroc 310, Wright Socks, shorts, t-shirt, hat

Camden Hills Run (a while ago)

2009-08-31T06:40:00.007-04:00

On August 22nd Emma and I celebrated National Trail Running Day with Mary, Peter and Jeff by heading up to Camden Hills State Park. Expecting cool and possibly rainy weather I had planned a 15 mile route, but it turned out to be a very hot and humid day and we ended up cutting the run short and actually running the last few miles on the roads.

By the time we reached 5.5 miles at the top of Bald Rock Mountain it became clear that we wouldn't have enough water to get us through the whole distance so we revised our plan. By about 7.5 miles at the top of Cameron Mountain it was clear that we wouldn't make it the 4 miles or so back to the car by going back up over the ridge of Mt Megunticook so we again revised our plan and took the shortest/quickest way out which meant a few miles on roads. We did take a nice break on Cameron and picked blueberries for a while which helped refuel a bit.

Luckily we had started our run from a parking lot on Rt 52 just across from Lake Megunticook so as soon as we finished the run we were able to jump in the lake for a refreshing swim, then followed that up with a good meal at the Waterfront in Camden.

time: 2:34:25
distance: 10.98 miles
pace: 14:03

weather: mid 80's, humid, some clouds and fog

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 315, Balega socks, shorts, t-shirt, hat, Nathan HPL #020

The 10 Mile Recovery Run

2009-08-30T14:20:00.004-04:00

Emma and I have a tendency to do 10 mile road runs the day after long trail runs. I think I've gone through this before, not really a recovery run, more like extended training, or back-to-back long runs, although I don't really consider 10 miles to be a long run any more.

We decided to go to Falmouth and check out some of the roads that will be in our neighborhood when we move in a few weeks.

Lately I've been doing all my road runs in my fast shoes, Saucony Grid Sinister. The first few times I wore them earlier this year I ended up with strange pains in my legs following the runs and I had pretty much given up on wearing them, but over the past few months I have been making an effort to incorporate barefoot running into my weekly runs, and have been doing a few runs in Vibram Five Fingers so these leightweight, low to the ground Saucony's are part of the whole move to a more minimalist approach to footwear (which Inov-8 is part of) and everything seems to be going well for me now. Emma is also jumping on the minimalist bandwagon and just picked up a pair of Asics Speedstar. Not the most minimal road shoe but she's weening herself off of fat cushiony shoes and orthotics so it seems like a good transition shoe for her (sans orthotics).

The first few strides of our run were a bit creaky but it didn't take long to get warmed up. The weather was perfect, sunny and cool. Two miles into the run we came across Falmouth High School and decided to check out their track. Probably the slowest 400m we've ever run, and probably the first time I've set foot on a track in the past 7 years. Nice to know it's going to be close by if I ever get the urge to run on a track, although I don't know why I would when I've got many miles of trails and hills that are even closer.

There were a few good hills on the loop we ran, nothing major but enough to keep it interesting.

time: 1:29:28
distance: 10.44 miles
pace: 8:34

weather: mid 60's, sunny, very nice

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, Wright Socks, shorts, t-shirt, hat, Fuel Belt

Double Bruiser

2009-08-29T15:17:00.006-04:00

Since the Bradbury Bruiser is coming up in two weeks I thought it would be a good idea to run the course, to make sure everything was okay out on the trails. And to make sure that I did miss anything I thought it would be a good idea to run it a second time in the opposite direction.

Emma and I did this run last year with Floyd and finished in about 4:21, under hotter and drier conditions. We had no intention of trying to beat that time today, just get in a good long run, but Emma and I do have a tendency to push it a little bit when we run together.

We arrived at the park a little before 8 and were soon joined by Valerie, Jim and of course Danny (the tropical storm), who brought with him steady rain and cooler temperatures. I have to say that I was delighted to have Danny in town, my performance at most of my races this summer has suffered because of the heat and humidity so it was a relief to be running in cooler air and I didn't mind the rain at all (I learned how to run in Scotland). Not expecting anyone else to show up we headed off just after 8, but were surprised to bump into Jeff and Yana on the Island Trail about 1.5 miles along the course, they had arrived a little late but luckily knew how to find us on the race course.

We made pretty good time around the course considering the wet, slippery, puddly conditions and we all hung together until hitting the O-Trail. As is to be expected the group thinned out a bit here, but one of the fun things about the O-Trail is that when the group breaks up it's actually easier to see the people right ahead of you or behind you as you pass going opposite directions on this labyrinth of a trail. Near the end of the O-Trail we bumped into Chuck who was getting a very late start, but since we are so predictable he knew just how to find us.

My Garmin struggled through the trees and thick cloud cover, there is no difference between the way we ran the course for each lap so there shouldn't be two parallel lines along the route.

Intimidating looking elevation profile which misrepresents the course, it's actually very flat.

We finished the first lap of the Bruiser course in 2:09 which is a little better than many of the runs that we did on the course last year. I don't think the trail conditions played too much of a factor in slowing us down. Jim, Jeff and Yana finished here, Emma, Chuck and I made a quick stop and headed back out and I think Valerie was going to do a second lap of just the O-Trail since it's so much fun.

Apart from when we finished the first lap I wasn't looking at my watch at all, I really didn't care (that much) about how fast we were running, but I was trying to keep from slowing down on the second 12 mile lap. Generally speaking I was feeling good and full of energy. There was a slight pain in the arch of my right foot, perhaps a results of running the TMR TNR in Vibram's this week, maybe too much of a jump up in distance. Both my knees felt a little "tired", but nothing that had me concerned or made me think I should slow down.

When we hit 20 miles I stopped to pee and Emma took over the lead, and of course she picked up the pace a little. I think she was hoping to run a negative split. In fact, later she did admit that she was hoping to run a negative split, but I guess I wasn't pushing it enough in the first 2/3's of the second lap because as we neared the end of the run it became evident that it wasn't going to happen. With about 1 mile to go Chuck (who had run 11 miles less than us) took the role of rabbit in hopes of providing some incentive for us to really pick up the pace, but we didn't even try to keep up with his sprint. We did pick it up a little and it was lot of fun running right behind Emma through the tights turns of the Island Trail.

Our last two miles were probably the fastest of the day but we finished the backwards lap of the Bruiser course in 2:13. I didn't really expect to run a negative split so I'm not dissapointed that we didn't. I had a great run, it was so nice to do a long trail run with Emma again and it was nice to get out running with Chuck who we haven't run with since before the VT100.

Following the run we stopped by Stone's Cafe for bunch. First thing on the menu was "Monster Hash and Eggs" so I had to get it, what better way to recover from a long run than with a festival of pork products on a plate.

time: 4:22:02
distance: 24 miles
pace: 10:55

weather: low-high 50's, steady rain

conditions: wet, muddy, puddles

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 280, Wright Socks, shorts, t-shirt, hat, Nathan HPL #020

Tuesday Nights at Twin Brook

2009-08-25T06:22:00.007-04:00

Photos from last week's TMR TNR by Peter Buchanan

Bradbury Mountain Breaker Results

2009-08-18T07:17:00.005-04:00

Results for the Bradbury Mountain Breaker are now posted on the race website

RESULTS

Thanks to everyone who came out to run and thanks to all the volunteers who helped make it happen. Despite very hot weather everyone seemed to have a good time on the though course.

Congratulations to all the Trail Monsters who turned out good performances at the race!