Madison/Freedom/Chocorua

I forgot to post this in the last blog entry, but I hit 1000 miles for the year on Saturday! Not that I have ever cared or really care, but when I saw it on Strava, I thought it was pretty neat.

Monday was pretty quiet at the ambulance for the first half of the day. There were a couple of calls, including a car in the lake at Purity Spring that the other crew went to. The fence that my ambulance partner had just put up there last week (he works there, too) had been destroyed in the process, so it was probably a good thing we weren't the crew to respond. Haha. I tried to sit outside for awhile, but as temps got up to 80, I was way too hot in the sun. 

Soaking in the sun just before the temps rose drastically

I don't remember why, but I ended up on the United States Snowshoe Association's 2015 qualifying page on their website. I had never looked to see who qualified for Nationals this winter since I wasn't participating, but thank goodness I did, because there she was right on the list, my alter ego, LESLIE BECKWITH!

2015 qualifiers 

How she snuck in and qualified behind my back, I'll never know, but she has a funny way of doing that. So there we were, BOTH on the list! Now, I wish I had raced it because I'm pretty sure I would have kicked her ass. I also found out a few months ago that she was pulling shifts at the ambulance. I came to pick up my paycheck, and in addition to mine, I saw she had one, too! And it was the same amount!! The nerve!!

We finally got a decent 911 around 2pm, which from Tamworth, usually takes about 2 hours to get done, so we got back to the base right around 4pm. I was pretty dehydrated after sweating my ass off on that call, so I tried to catch up a bit before I had to meet Jim Johnson and Darin Brown for a run. I made an effort, but I was parched for most of the run. I met those guys at Madison Town Beach, and they took me on a nice running tour of the snowmobile trails and dirt roads of Freedom and Madison. It had cooled off a bit and with us running in the shade, the temp was perfect. It was a bit muddy in parts through the Pine Barrens section, but the rest was pretty dry. We did a 10.3 mile loop that took us past the air strip and up to Lead Mine Rd where we added on a really nice section of trail around a pond. Darin wasn't too thrilled to be on the single track, so once we hit a wider path, Jim took us onto that for the way back to Lead Mine, with just a short distance back to the cars. We had quite a few ticks on us after the run, which I hate, but I'm used to it with the dogs. Still gross, though. 

Tuesday morning runs are usually kind of difficult if I've done a long run the night before, and today was no exception. It was a decent run, but my legs felt really heavy just over halfway through. As much as I really wanted to be on the trail, I decided that I really needed to get a decent road run in today. So this week's elevation won't be up to par with what I've been trying to do, but that's ok. I plan to hit the trails and mountains more next week, and as soon as Vermont is done, I will stop focusing so much on the road. I still have a lot of road races planned for the year, but nothing over a half marathon and mostly just 5ks and 10ks. So I drove to one of my usual places at Chocorua Lake for one of my winter go-to runs. I ran 12 miles, mostly just an out-and-back with a slight deviation on the way back. 7:19/mi pace. I would have liked to have run that just a little bit faster, but it just wasn't happening today. The weather was beautiful, though, and the road quiet, so I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

John came home shortly after I got back, and, when given the choice of a mountain bike ride or a walk, he chose to mountain bike. So we hit up Sticks and Stones off Thompson Rd. This was the first time we've been able to actually ride this together without him having to stop constantly to walk. His old bike just made it too difficult. With his new bike, he was schooling me! It was fun. We only did 2.5 miles, but for him, it was a lot of effort; he had ninja class later so I didn't want to wear him out too much.

John riding Sticks 'n Stones

Once we got home, I worked on a few projects. I put up the screen doors (well, one I still have to actually drill holes into, so it's just resting in the door jam) since the black flies are starting to make their appearance. I kind of procrastinated on our gardens in April and got to work on those. We just have two very small raised bed gardens (definitely not fancy or sophisticated), so it wasn't much work clearing them out. I had soil and compost leftover from last year to make it even more convenient. I planted some stuff in one garden, except the tomatoes which stay in the house for another month. We'll plant Johns flower garden in June. As I was cleaning it, I realized that the strawberry plants from last year were growing underneath the winter mess. Pretty cool. We never got strawberries from them last year, but I'm hoping this year will be the exception.

Garden 1s mess. I don't know why my former "roommate" put that wood raised bed around it, but I was too lazy to remove it.

Garden 2s mess.

Garden 1 is definitely not pretty, but it fits my personality. LOL.

Strawberry plants in garden 2!

Sitting in my yard

Tomorrow, I'm back to work in North Conway for my 24, but it won't just be a 24. I'll be going right from the NoCo base at 7am on Thursday to the Tamworth base for another 10 hour shift to make it a 34. I convinced my Wednesday partner to pick up the other half of the crew on Thursday, so we'll both be making the trek from one base to the other for the 34. If we are out all night on Wednesday, we are going to be wrecked on Thursday. I might actually have to nap!! I'm not a napper either, but I might just have to force the issue with myself. I have one more long run to do after work Thursday, so I hope I'm not too tired. Friday will be a zero day for sure, and then it's the Merrimack River Trail Race on Saturday.