This was my hardest training week of the Laugavegur Block, highlighted by two mountain runs in the Whites Saturday-Sunday.
Monday: 8 Miles- Hopkinton, RI
Arcadia South recovery on dirt roads.
Tuesday: 10 Miles- Richmond, RI
Carolina loop. The N-S bypass trail coming back was very overgrown with drooping plants that had lots of seeds. Got the seeds all over my legs and was swelling up a lot/getting welts all over.
Wednesday: 11 Miles
AM 5 Miles- Charlestown, RI
Morning Burlingame South/Kettle Pond Loop.
PM 6 Miles- Westerly, RI
Fun Run #3. Started out with a 1.5 tempo averaging 5:46 wanting to get a bit more volume than just the 5K. Then plan was to run a steady 5:30 tempo this time around. Jake Serra was there and ran with me through Bayberry before starting to fall off, so I figured I'd do the same as last week and make it progressive to ensure I won comfortably. Got a 16:54 win.
Thursday: 10 Miles- Exeter, RI
Other Arcadia dirt road loop in the North/Central section from Midway. This was/is the hottest run of the year for me as it was above 81 degrees (I think my phone showed 85, but strava shows 81 - not sure what's correct). It didn't actually feel awful in the shade, but was definitely getting a bit of that heat-related nausea towards the end. Legs felt like junk, maybe not surprising after pushing it a lot harder yesterday for the first time in months.
Friday: 10 Miles- Groton, CT
Haley-Bluff loop with extensions on the trolley trail and boardwalk to make 10.
Saturday: 19 Miles- Bethlehem, NH
Kind of an epic White Mountains route I've wanted to do for a while but didn't get around to by now. So this would add 4 new 4,000 footers for me - North Twin, West Bond, Zealand, and Hale in a challenging route with 6,400 feet elevation gain.
Like last weekend, it rained over night and everything was wet. I was trying La Sportiva Bushido III's as I heard the grip is better. A few easy miles with light climbing to start before an ultra steep climb to get up North Twin fast. Fantastic views from there. The trail from North Twin to South Twin was really narrow with pine trees brushing up against the trail, and I got pretty cold from the water on the pine needles.
The trail is pretty nice from there over to West Bond. although very technical. I was struggling with tired legs and tired body. There was a ton of blowdowns on the trail which made it hard to run in a rhythym. I decided to keep the short OAB to West Bond steady and got top 10 in the segment. Zealand was crowded with like 5 hikers speaking French, and I accidentally skipped Zeacliff which is probably a shame because that's supposed to be a great view. After descending Zealand, stopped briefly at the Zealand Falls hut. I tried refilling my water, but the color was really offputting, so I ended up just using my filter flask in the river instead. The grade up to Hale was so much more runnable, but I barely ran of it because the trail was extremely rooty, which are dangerously slippery on a wet day like today. Hale was okay, took a break because I was exhausted then fortunately the descent off Hale was not technical whatsoever and I got down and finished really quick.
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| West Bond Summit |
The Sportiva's seemed solid, definitely an improvement from last week - but I tried going down a section of wet and steep rock slab and decided to just trust the shoes, where I slipped and slid pretty bad, cutting up my thigh and crashing into a tree. I heard someone at Chocorua say VJs are the only option on a wet day, so maybe he's right about that.
Sunday: 11 Miles- Berlin, NH
Much shorter/easier route today, just looping 10 miles/3000 feet for Mount Cabot. Andrew met me after doing Mt. Washington the day before, although I ended up just running the whole thing solo since he fell really far back. The good news was it wasn't anywhere near as wet as yesterday, I don't remember much slipping. The bad news is that I was absolutely cooked, low energy and trash legs from the start. Which is a shame, because the climb to the top was super runnable, no crazy grades or huge boulders. On a good day I think I could run every step to the top. Instead I settled for like 50% as I'd just get tired so quick.
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| Cabot Summit |
I waited a bit on the summit for Andrew but realized he wasn't coming anytime soon and there were annoying bugs. I'd have 3 miles on the Kilkenny Ridge before descending, and these miles were crazy. I complained about the blowdowns yesterday, but these were on an entirely different level. Last week were downed trees, but with minimal things sticking out of it (just stepping over a log basically). These one were thick full pine trees, which meant bushwhacking around the tree ever time. The first part was so bad because there would be 3 blowdowns per 200m, but the trail was also at like -30% grade. So stop and go with significant breaks to figure how to keep going. I'd also go off the trail accidentally after a blowdown a few times. Fortunately, it got a lot better after a mile and the trail even got a lot more runnable (after a crazy technical section though). Lots of moose poop up there. The descent was fairly easy although crazy muddy.
Weekly Total: 80 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Great week from a training standpoint. Sub-17 fun run, then nearly 12,000 feet of elevation gain for the week and my highest week of mileage for trail running.
Weekly Lowlight: Lots of fatigue towards the end of the week. Mountain running can be really fun, it's not quite as much when you're stopping or walking twice the amount due to fatigue.
Movies Watched: The Accountant 2
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