Mountain Llama: Recovery...Kind of!

I was already toeing the line, but I basically screwed myself by racing Pack Monadnock, followed by a stupid week of running and then Ascutney. The last two times I ran Ascutney, I was fine and needed little recovery, but since I was still recovering from Boston, the Ammonoosuc Amble, Big River Trail Half, Seven Sisters, Sleepy Hollow, the Twilight 10,000m, VCM, Pack Monadnock AND the Great Glen Trails weekly race, I think it's safe to say that the recovery from Ascutney wasn't going to be so quick. Hahaha!! (I swear I have like 5 or 6 weekends off from racing on the tentative schedule for 2016! I'm not even the worst offender... Ellen Tidd, Diane Levesque, Gary Reuter and Erica Khan, you know who you are!! Haha. :) ). I think I did better with easier runs this time around because, even though I wasn't feeling 100% at Mt Washington, I also wasn't feeling tired, worn out or sore. Just still on the slow side.

Monday, June 13, 2016- I started Monday off with a zero day. We were fairly busy at work, so I was still moving around more than usual. I was on call again so I just stayed in my uniform after work and took a walk on the trails I had yet to explore by White Lake. I think I freaked some people out when I walked up toward the lake; the uniform kind of looks like a cop's from a distance. They got quiet and stared suspiciously until I got closer realized that I wasn't. It was kind of funny. The new-to-me trail was short and just went out to another pond before ending at the snowmobile trail, which I followed for a bit before turning around. I was getting too close to the 20 minute mark for when I had to be into work after getting called in. Fortunately, I ended up not getting called in until later but still got a full night's sleep.

White Lake walk. Mt Chocorua peaking out.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016- I got up earlier than usual, so 7:30, it was. Haha. I wanted to get a decent trail run in over at the Mineral Site before John came home. Instead of the normal 12 miles, I decided to cut it short and drive all the way in to the main trailhead, thus skipping the High School Loop which is 2 miles extra each way. 8 miles seemed like a wiser idea. I brought Spot along since I knew it would be a slow pace and we made our way over to Whitehorse Ledge via the Stony Brook Trails and then looped back via the Tent Boulder Trail. My legs felt pretty heavy, but I somehow managed to break one of my own course records on Strava on the full climb on Stony Brook. And it wasn't by mere seconds. It was by exactly a minute. Crazy. I had some other segments in there that I didn't touch, but to hit that one and by so much was pretty surprising. The 8 mile run was 1,342 ft of elevation gain and took just over an hour and a half. This would be my longest run this week before Mt Washington. Not bad. Not bad.

I had some errands to run in Portland, so as soon as John got home, we left. I brought along the bikes so that we could bike on the Back Cove Trail. It's a mostly flat 3.7 mile ride, and even though the wind was whipping like crazy, it didn't seem to be blowing much on the bike path. John actually enjoyed the bike ride which I wasn't sure was going to happen.

We didn't have too much time there. I hit the Bier Cellar to pick my orders, Trader Joe's and then back to North Conway for John's ninja class. Typical Tuesday night. Picked up Allagash's latest release of Nancy. Pretty good. Very tart. Cool tree on the label. I should make that a tattoo. Oh wait...

Wednesday, June 15, 2016- You know when your truck ends up like this:

And is followed by this all before 8am...

...you're in for a busy day. I had actually gotten myself out of bed at 4:30am to run 5 miles on the treadmill, keeping it at 1% to save the legs. 7:15/mi pace. I didn't have my first bite of food until 6 hours later. As soon as I got the truck cleaned from the bad call, it was right into another 911. I literally almost passed out twice while restocking the truck after that second call. I needed food that badly. That's kind of how the whole day went. Busy as hell, then a little down time, then busy as hell. That was the busiest day I've ever worked here, and I was SO tired by the time we had our last call that night.

I wasn't able to make it to John's track meet at Fryeburg, but Donna Cormier snapped this shot of John in the long jump. I wouldn't find out until the next week when John brought home the ribbons, but he won his heat in the 50m! That was cool to hear. He also ran the 100m and got a "participation" ribbon. Haha. Still cool. He ended up enjoying the track program... but still hates running. :)

Thursday, June 16, 2016- Third to last 34 hour shift. I have been counting down the weeks and cannot wait to have Thursdays free. Another pretty busy day. I was happy to be skipping the Great Glen Trails race this week. I didn't want to drive up there just to run it for fun, so I ran an easy run in the Bolles Preserve in Chocurua. It was literally on my way home from work and not too strenuous with climbing. 5.5 miles. 10:19/mi pace with 921ft of elevation gain. But once again, I think I'm taking it easy, and I break another one of my own course records on Strava...by TWO minutes. No idea how that happened. I'm thinking this one could be a watch error, but maybe not. The last time I ran this segment back in April, I ran it even easier than today, and then before that was 2014 when I was much slower than I am now. So maybe it is real.

When I got home, I was psyched to find a package in the mail from RunVermont with my age group award. It's similar to last year's except last year was a maple leaf key chain... and I wasn't so old. Haha.

After that 34 hours, I needed a BIG beer, and this was a good choice.

Friday, June 17, 2016- Slept in as late as I could, then was super lazy. Finally got out for one of the easiest runs I do. The Albany Town Forest. I brought Phoenix and Spot along. I had planned no more than 5 miles, but it ended up being 6.1 with the addition of some Strava art I made for somebody. Crazy to think that it added in a mile. It was a good run and perfect for the day before Mt Washington.

I was feeling less tired by today, but I did start to question whether I should have followed my original plan to take 3 full days off in a row this week like I did last year. It did wonders for me last year. I was so recovered, ran a decent time and then jumped right into Whiteface Skymarathon the following weekend feeling great. But hindsight is 20/20, and I felt pretty good to go for Saturday. Like I said, not 100%, but not too bad.

When John came home, I took him to the lake. It started raining pretty much as soon as we got there, though, so we didn't stay long. We were meeting the Six03 group at McGrath's for dinner anyway, so leaving the beach made it less rushed. There wasn't a huge crowd at McGrath's, and dinner was quick. No one wanted to be out too late the night before. I know I didn't. I did have a beer and a burger, then juiced some vegetables in my juicer when I got home. Something didn't sit right, though, and I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to puke. I ran to the bathroom, but nothing. Not good. I couldn't go back to sleep until it subsided, and by then I was awake worrying I was going to be sick for Mt Washington. Fortunately, I never puked and finally went back to sleep.