Monday: 8 Miles
Slept in and waited until the afternoon. Kept pace very relaxed and felt pretty good throughout. Local roads plus a few trails here and there north of the house (riverbend, east ave, mastuxet area).
Tuesday: 8 Miles
8AM Duval run. Had a failed attempt to take all 6 segments here a little over a month ago, got the easy ones but the longer ones (Duval trail, Duval trail reverse, Bull-Head lollipop). Was a little discouraged but realized 1) how fast the CRs were on some of the trails and 2) there's no way I'd be able get them in a moderate effort. Came back with the idea of running each one hard with goal paces of 6:00 for the first and third segments mentioned, 6:25 or so for the reverse segment (net elevation gain). Took me a while to come back here as I made all runs easy for a while recovering from an achilles ailment, but now felt like the time to do it.
Did a two mile warm-up where I felt pretty solid except for having to use the bathroom twice which led to some chafing as I used all my wiping materials on the first stop. Took a moment to catch my breath (yes, I am panting and exhausted after the all-out warm-up) and stretch before getting going. I tend to go out a little too quick and was in the 5:40s for a quarter mile or so. The pace slowly ticked up. Kept a solid effort, although slower than I would have liked on any steep uphill through the mile with around 6:10 pace. Galoob CR's shows 6:08 pace so I figured I was just slightly off. However, I was feeling a lot worse than expected and didn't expect to have any extra gear from there. Slowed down a lot from there, even with then downhill at the end. I tried to keep pushing, but there wasn't much there and when I finally looked at my watch and saw 6:45 pace (for the last .7, my watch auto laps after a mile), I knew I was way off. Somehow, I was only 2 seconds behind Galoob, maybe I could have taken that time off had I knew I was close. Guess my watch pace wasn't entirely accurate with the segment pace. Was more pleased with the effort after seeing that, but my massive positive split isn't impressive and I need to go out a little slower, close harder, and be more mentally disciplined to push on steep sections and tight turns. Also had an awkward ankle twist on a rock, don't think it added much though I'm just making excuses. Two encounters with people, both got out of the way without me having to say anything so it was all good. I recently started the strava premium free trial due to the leaderboard, map builder and training log removals from the free accounts (and the free trial was extended to 2 months), and there's a cool feature where you can playback your efforts on a segment compared to anyone else on the segment. I compared mine to Galoob's and saw that I had gone out significantly harder than him and faded much worse as he closed strong. If it were a race, he would have passed me in the final 50 meters or so. It definitely confirmed I need to go out a little slower.
The return segment wasn't pretty. I tried to go out slower but was likely tired from the first segment. Pretty solid effort through the mile at 6:35 (the replay shows I was ahead here again) but totally died after that/started running really slow and back half was over 7:00 minute pace. A good 10 seconds behind Galoob, 15 behind Garvin. Obviously the fatigue and slight net elevation gain is a factor, but I was 29 seconds slower on this segment, not exactly proud of that effort. One human encounter, same group as before, where they noticed me at the last second and the girl screamed. Ah, trail runners, the scariest animals out there. They definitely thought I was a freak as I probably looked horrible and appeared to be sprinting randomly for no reason. Was really discouraged about my failures at this point and was considering jogging back to the car (also, I really felt those efforts, normally I can maintain a solid 8:00-8:30 pace on single-track without much effort, but I was probably slogging above 9:30 on my rests). Decided not to be a total quitter/wimp and go for the bull-head lollipop. Felt solid going out, a few unexpected uphills were tiring. Loop was easier than I remember, only an awkwardly sloped section and a short technical slowed me down. Checked my pace on the way back- 6:02, pretty good considering the segment CR was 6:30 or so. Lost track of the green blazes and suddenly got really tired towards the end and definitely dogged the last 300 meters or so. Thought I was lost for a second. Still got it, but due to my slowdown I cut it really close. That, and the fact that my pace was shown as 6:25 or so on strava, even though my watch my measured it as 6:14. Pretty sure whoever made the segment measured it much shorter the actual distance, the SK land trust marks it as 1.2 miles while the segment is at .96. I'm sure I didn't get 1.2 myself, but I definitely got longer than .96 as my pace was reflected as faster than that (it's probably somewhere between the two, there's no way I was running low 5s pace). Jogged back to the car, was pretty exhausted and legs tired so called it at 8 miles, didn't have the energy to do a proper cool-down.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Easy 8 in Woody Hill with Dad and Brady. Feeling Duval, stiff and tired from the start. Ran really slow today, lots of miles over 9 minutes than I usually run high 7s/low 8s on. Good to take proper recovery days and actually slow things down.
Thursday: 13 Miles
Was looking into some possible FKT opportunities and the majority of them are either too long or too fast for me to attempt. There's a few that are possibilities (Pequot Trail, Undermountain trail) in CT but Arcadia trail seemed like a good one Jonathan Short made and I quickly became interested in setting an FKT- a good last effort while stuck in RI (state borders opened this week). I looked into his route details and since he claimed it was well marked, that was good enough for me. Follow the yellow blazes from Appie Crossing trailhead to Arcadia road and back, simple enough. I looked at the trail on strava maps and saw there were many trail intersections, which worried me as I wasn't at all familiar with the area and just had to hope the markings were really good. Was feeling really sore the night prior, but decided to go for it anyway as I had another long trail run planned for Saturday and pushing Arcadia back to Friday would make those back to back.
Arrived just past 8am and started shortly. A little weird to have a effort where I'm not stopping for 13 miles, I'm much more used to segment segments where I'll be done within 5-10 minutes, not over an hour and a half. Instantly made the mistake of not using bathroom before starting, noticed I had to pee maybe 10 seconds in but decided not to go back, I was almost done. Went out pretty hot from the start, probably also a mistake, should have used the first half mile at least as a warm-up. Was huffing and puffing the first mile or so and feeling the effort before easing in somewhat and feeling relaxed. First two miles of trails weren't especially difficult and I was feeling really good about sub-7:10 average pace (Jonathan ran around 9:00 average, in much worse conditions). Started to hit more technical and hillier terrain and slowed down a bit, got really tight around 2.5 which was concerning but probably from the fast start as it was gone soon enough. Eased into it, got into a nice rhythm which was only disturbed by a very technical rock garden followed by a boulder field which was not runnable whatsoever (pretty short though) and me taking a wrong turn onto a white trail. It was clearly marked yellow ahead but my eyes were down focusing on the trail and after running on a few bridges, I saw another bridge to the right and went that way. This was around 5.5 miles. When the technical terrain cleared up, I was able to look at the blazes again, noticed they were white and there were no yellow blazes to be seen so turned around and quickly found the trail. Last mile out to end was pretty nice through pine forest and pretty easy. 51 minutes or so at the turnaround.
Had another mile or two that felt pretty good, but coming into the rock gardens/boulder field this time my momentum wasn't as good and it was uphill. Really struggled to get moving after clearing each technical obstacle as it was uphill. Slowest mile split here at 9:15ish. Legs were feeling the effort by this point and feeling Duval. Last three miles tiring and not as fast as going out. Second half about a minute slower than going out, if you exclude the wrong turn which added about 30s (take 30s off from my first half and there was a minute difference). 1:42:21 overall. Great conditions, low 50s to start probably high 50s at finish, trails completely dry except for maybe a 30m muddy section. Route link on Fastest Known Time here.
Was an idiot today and forgot my water bottle, it was a long and thirsty ride home.
Friday: 8 Miles
Today's plan was to take the last 2 segments in Grills Hopkinton/Westerly that I don't have, those plans went out the window when I realized I was tired and sore and easy recovery would be a much better idea. Slow and stiff run like Wednesday although didn't feel quite as bad.
Saturday: 13 Miles
Nehantic Trail point to point with Dad and Brady. Started at the southern end at Green Falls Pond swimming area running the trail to its northern end at hopeville pond state park (it doesn't go in the park but ends across the street from it). Humid and wet day from rain, first humid day in a long day so I struggled at the beginning, felt weak and had trouble breathing. Started out very technical and hilly the first quarter mile (11+ minute pace), but most the trail wasn't that difficult. Got the pace down in the low 8s and kept it there. Felt lousy the entire first half. Fun climb up mount misery that seems easier than I remember, although the second hill of it was pretty steep. Pretty good lookout. We got lost towards the end and missed a short section of the trail, running dirt roads around it before getting back on track. Legs tired at the end although I stopped feeling weak. Pretty fun overall, solid trail. Perfect distance for a point to point trail run. Would like to do some more of the CT blue blazed trails in their entirety, many are way too long but Pequot trail and Cockaponset trail are both 8 miles so they could be options. Also I wrote last week there's no FKT on this trail, but there is, I completely missed it.
Sunday: 8 Miles
Easy Ninigret run with Dad and Brady. Did none of the pacing, and today was truly slow recovery which is a good thing after some harder and tiring runs this week and my refusal to get into a regular rolling out/stretching routine.
Weekly Total: 67 Miles
YTD Total: 1,379 Miles (on track for: 3,471 Miles)
Weekly Highlight: Putting in some solid trail work this week, obviously not a real substitute for road or track workouts which it seems I've completely given up on (which I'm okay with, my mileage is not high but solid enough and I'm having fun out on the trails). Duval was a nice test of some hard, shorter trail running which I had some decent efforts, probably not my best stuff though. Arcadia and Nehantic were fun exploration of the entirety of the trail, with Arcadia being a harder effort to get the FKT.
Weekly Lowlight: A good week. 67 miles, and the previously mentioned fun trail runs. Felt worse on recovery days but that's expected. No lowlight this week. Maybe these short/non-serious ankle sprains that keep happening.
So strava underwent so major changes as segment leaderboards outside the top 10, the training log, and the route builder (upgraded) were all removed from the free version of the account. The leaderboards are probably important to some people (bikers), but the training log removal and the route builder, which I was just starting to use and enjoy with all the trails on there missing from map my run as well as instant segment and elevation statistics, are more of a loss. I decided to test out the free trial, and there's a lot of cool features there including the leaderboard sorting, goals, heatmaps, training plans, and pace analysis/breakdown (it gives you what percent of your run is Recovery, Endurance, Tempo, Threshold and Anaerobic which I think is really cool). The subscriber perks are pretty useless, you'd have to have extremely specific shopping interests as the stores they give you discounts on are pretty weird. There is a 20% off new balance but its kinda useless as buying the shoes directly from the NB site is so expensive to begin with. Anyway, all of that is pretty cool but none of it is really worth the $5 per month, it's basically just a bunch of neat features I'll use every once in a while but don't need. However, the route builder is fantastic and since there's no longer a free version, I think that alone is worth paying for summit. I don't think any of the new features of the route builder are anything special as opposed to the beta version- except one: they take their road and trail data from openstreetmap. If you're not familiar with openstreetmap, you can edit the maps and add any trail data by dropping your GPX track of a run on there and then tracing the trails that don't exist. You can also add names to them (Carter red trail, carter blue trail, etc.). It seems it takes a little while for the trails for get onto the strava builder, but they do get there eventually as trails I have put on are now there (you can't map on them for some reason though, I'm sure they'll fix this soon). The ability to now map on trails, all trails as you can add them yourselves will be awesome for route making and will be very helpful in exploring new places/routes. The additional summit features are bonuses on top of that, if this route builder works the way its supposed to (meaning I can map on the trails I've added soon), I'll cough up the $60 without whining. I will be adding any trails I run missing from the maps that to improve it.
I've done a lot of segment hunting in the last few months, it's fun but also tiring. Now that the borders are finally open, I plan to mostly cease activities on segments in focus on doing some hard mountain runs and hikes a little further from home.
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