Road/Mountains

I have to admit that my recovery from that track meet has not been good. I recovered more quickly from VCM, but then again, I trained for VCM. That 5000m was a shock to my system. Monday and Tuesday's runs were good runs (on paper), but my legs were sore and tired both days. It doesn't help that I'm still trying to catch up on the lack of sleep. I'm signed up for Pack Monadnock on Sunday, but I'm not sure I can make it. All of my childcare options have fallen through, so far. And I don't have many options to begin with; no family, no good support network here. These point-to-point races are REALLY difficult for me to pull off bringing John to because of the logistics. I'm thinking this might be a blessing in disguise, though, and that maybe it would be good for me to skip racing this weekend. The only problem is that I will have to do Ascutney, another logistically difficult race for John, AND it would be race #3 over a span of 4 days. I'm not sure that's a good idea. So right now, it's all up in the air. I'm taking a zero today (yes, on National Running Day; ha ha). I need it. I'm working a 34 hour shift, so it's better for me to get the extra hour of sleep this morning anyway. Plus, it means 34 hours of rest on the legs. I'll run again Thursday night after work.

Monday 6/1/15- Worked a 10 in Tamworth. 20 minutes to 5pm, my supervisor calls me, literally begging me to stay an extra hour on-call since the person they found to cover the stipend shift couldn't start until 6pm. I told him no, at first, but they were out of options. I really wanted to get my run in, so that I could get home early and go to bed at a decent time (this actually didn't happen, but it was my intent! ha ha). So I said I would stay if they didn't care if I still went for a run and would just have my partner pick me up if we got called in. I didn't even ask my partner; I just told him to pick me up. :) I also said I wouldn't be in uniform either. They didn't care; they were desperate. So for the first hour of my run, I was getting paid. I liked how that worked out. And I never got called in.
This route is probably one of the most boring runs, but it has some nice hills in the middle of it. I started from the ambulance base, ran down 41 (which is super flat), then did a loop on High St, Washington Hill and Deer Hill, then back to 41 which brought me back to the base. It was actually a decent run, considering the really sore legs and temps in the 40s with a steady rain the whole time. 13 miles, 7:11/mi pace, 769ft of elevation gain. So not a bad run at all, but in reality, I was hurting.

Tuesday 6/2/15- I wasn't surprised to still have sore legs since this run was only 14 hours after the previous night's run. I had actually planned to do a longer mountain run, but I couldn't get myself out of bed until 7:30am. I needed the sleep. I drove over to Thompson Rd to run a loop of Rattlesnake, Middle and Peaked Mountains. In all fairness, I don't ever go to the actual summit of Rattlesnake, as I have yet to find the trail that goes to it. I even searched it out from one area a few months ago, but came to a drop off and saw no signs of a trail. I'm guessing the trail is probably from somewhere down near the Redstone Quarry, but I haven't been motivated enough to waste my time on a run searching it out. I will someday.
I ran up to the Sidehill Trail which brought me right to the trail up "Rattlesnake". It's a decent climb. Looking at it from town, it looks like a small mountain, but running up it is surprisingly steep. It climbs to a small peak off the side of Middle Mountain before a connector trail from there brings you over to the true summit of Middle Mountain. I got to the summit and immediately turned around to continue on. This run was also in a cold drizzle with temps in the 40s, so stopping for too long would make me cold. I ran down the trail to the connector trail for Peaked Mt and then hit its summit. I stopped for a minute this time to take a couple of pictures.

View of Middle Mt from Peaked Mt

Haven't done a sign selfie in awhile

From the top of Peaked, it's mostly a downhill run back to the parking area. 6 miles in 1:15. 1895 ft of elevation gain. Not only were my legs tired, but my entire body. I just wanted to sleep after that. I was so fatigued for most of day. I spent two hours lying on the couch before I finally got myself up to take John, Spot and Phoenix on a walk up Heavenly Hill. The walk was great; it had stopped raining, but the cool temps meant hardly a bug, and I felt rejuvenated. John really enjoyed it, as well, and spent some time lying on the summit rock while I went out to the viewpoint. He plays a lot of video games, so it was nice to see him lie down in the peace and quiet and actually appreciate it. I stood out at the viewpoint for awhile. The view never gets old, and the clouds over the Ossipee Mountains were pretty awesome.

Fortunately, I got in bed earlier and had good night's sleep. I feel better today already, but of course, we have yet to sleep through a Wednesday night. :)