2019 Cranmore Hill Climb

John and his friend, Dylan, sprinting to the finish of the Cranmore Hill Climb

This ended up being a slightly down week mileage-wise, but it honestly didn't feel like it. I was tired and sore by the end of the week so I think the lower mileage was a good choice since I felt like quality far out-weighed quantity. I basically did 3 races if you count Whitaker Woods. In addition to that was the Friday Night Vertical Race which I actually pushed extra hard in due to having competition this week. Whitaker was pouring rain and cool temps so I actually ran closer to race pace than tempo pace. And the Cranmore Hill Climb, while short distance, actually took a lot out of me. So while total mileage was only 45 miles, I actually finished off the week feeling pretty beat up. Finished off the week with 8,999ft of elevation gain which I thought was pretty funny. Could have added one more foot, but I thought that would be silly. Just a little over 8 hours of running.

As I added in as an edit in my last post, the Thursday shift I picked up got cancelled so it wasn't as horrible of a week as I thought it would be. I still had to work Friday and got moved to a regular shift in North Conway which was excruciating, but we were fairly busy. This is where I lost some of the usual mileage since I only ran at the Friday Night race instead of Friday morning, as well. Thursday I had more planned than I ended up doing, but it still wouldn't have been a long run really. With the unexpected day off, I did try to do as much as possible. A run up and down Mt Carrigain followed by a walk with Phoenix, Saco River Brewery and then a kayak paddle on Conway Lake, also with Phoenix. I was living my free day to its fullest. When free time is no longer a regular thing in your life, it's important to use it to its fullest. Just one of the many positive things having a child has taught me. I think about who I was prior to having John and think of how being a mother has made my life so much better. Only my opinion, but the childless are missing out on this aspect. They can claim they're not, but only those of us who have kids have lived on both sides of the coin and can know the true difference. I know not everyone has the same experience as a parent, but for me life has been better and more meaningful. (And sorry. Dogs are not children. You are not "mom" or "dad" to your pet. It isn't the same thing. As much as I love my dogs, there is no comparison).

Woke up to a bunch of these by my garage one morning. Thought they were pretty.

Monday, 6/24- Zero. I was pretty sore from the 5K so I took a zero. Walked 2 miles on the trail out back. I brought my weights with me but decided after I went upstairs to workout that I was done with the weight lifting. Like I said before, I don't like the way it's made me look. I decided to go back to Zuzka Light workouts so I re-upped my membership. I need equipment for her workouts so I only did a glute workout today.

Fitz posted a photo of me from the BHZ 5K. You can't see my running belt. Yay!

Tuesday, 6/25- 10.4 miles. I decided against my original plan for a steeper mountain run and chose to run up Black Cap via Kettle Ridge since it was entirely runnable the whole way. I won't lie, though. Someone did take one of my Strava CRs on a short segment of this climb 2 weeks ago which motivated me to do this run. It wasn't so much to take it back, but I got the previous CR on my fastest run up Kettle Ridge in 2014 so I was trying to figure out why this one segment was so slow. Well, I guess I must have stopped along the way at some point because I beat my original time by 36 seconds, but I still ran the entire climb from start to finish 3 minutes slower than 2014. The Fall of 2014 was when I got super fast and ran everything hard so I have CRs I'll never come close to again. Haha. 

But anyway, this was super easy run up with all of the switchbacks. Stopped briefly at the summit but had to keep moving due to the black flies. Ran down Red Tail and came across a cute little bear. Not a cub, but a very young one. We both stopped and looked at each other before he ran one way, then I the other. 7 miles total for the run. 1,650ft of elevation gain. 1:24:02.

I started over with Zuzka's Black Diamond Upper Body and Abs series today. 15 minutes each. Felt easy, but I was actually a little sore after. I did tweak a muscle in my back during it, but not while doing an exercise but instead just getting into position. What the hell? It wasn't bad and was gone after about 36 hours. Happy to be back doing mostly body weight stuff and pull-ups and using light weights occasionally.

It was raining most of the day so John and I took Phoenix on a short walk on the Conway Rec Path. It was SO buggy. 1.65 miles.

I was getting sick of running in the rain so I almost didn't go to Whitaker Woods, but then I realized how much nicer it would be to run in rain instead of hot and humid. It turned out I was right. I did put in a little more effort because it felt so much easier. Ran about 40 seconds faster than the week before in 20:49. I was happy I came out for the run after all. I had to wear my phone all week to record runs, but the phone GPS is far more accurate on trails than the watch. It was almost spot on with the wheeled measurement today. So it was nice to have the avergae pace be more accurate at 6:45/mi.

Stopped for Taco Tuesday take out at Jalisco's on the way home. Walked in to a madhouse of tourists. Yikes. We didn't even get to ease into them before they flooded in. Haha.

Hiding from the rain before the start

 Took these photos to show how soaking wet I was, and you can't even tell! Haha

Wednesday, 6/26- 4.6 miles. I really don't know why I bother. Still can't run outside that early. I was so stiff and running the 8:29 avg pace felt harder than the Whitaker Woods run the day before. I do feel better the rest of the day having done it, but in the moment it's painful and feels pointless. I did see a deer along the way that just stood and watched me until it got really close before bolting almost with a scream. Seriously, it did like this screaming noise and kept doing it as it ran through the woods. Very odd. 39:43.

I walked a mile on the trail in the evening at work and still did my glute work. Glute work is all I'll be doing at work now unless I decide to run or walk.

Monkey truck came back to us today as a backup truck. We used to have this truck up here all the time before Careplus pulled it to its southern bases for tranfers. It was originally a pediatric ambulance, hence the animals, but we all love it. I see it on I-95 in Massachusetts occasionally when I'm on my way down to Mass or RI since our company does a lot of transfers to the VA in West Roxbury.

This meme made me laugh so hard. So many people in this field think way too highly of themselves like they're heroes or something when this is more accurately the case...

We ended up getting a middle of the night call right around 1am. I didn't get back to sleep until close to 3:30am since it's hard to get back to sleep. Left me all messed up and tired the rest of the week. Still about 6 hours of sleep, but after getting up at 4:30am to run and then it being so broken up, I just couldn't recover. This is one of the reasons I'm hesitant to get up before 5am to run since I might need the extra hour on the other end. This week I did. 

Thursday, 6/27- 10 miles. As I mentioned already, my shift got cancelled so I planned to run the 13 mile Mt Carrigain loop returning via Carrigain Notch, like I did the last time I ran this in 2015. The only thing I hate about this loop is the very remote, little used trail that drops off the north side of Carrigain. I had no idea what I was getting into the last time and found myself climbing down boulders. I wrote in that blog post that it wasn't runnable. You drop over 2000ft in about 1.5 miles. As I started today's run, I immediately found that the trail was very wet due to all of the recent rain. In fact the entire way up was mostly wet slippery technical trail so it had me a bit concerned about my plan. The Desolation Trail is rough when it's dry so I had to make a decision on whether to do it today while it was so wet. Honestly, it wasn't so much my fear of just falling, but it was more a fear of falling and being by myself and no one else would be coming that way to find me. Had it been more traveled I would have continued with my plan, but I decided to opt out and change my run to an out and back. 10 miles vs 13 miles. No big deal really.

The run up was rough. I had forgotten how crazy technical the trail is, as well as fairly steep for the last 3 miles of the climb. I remembered powerhiking the last time, but I felt like I was hiking more and dying this time around. It was super humid today, but the temperature stayed in the 70s so it wasn't bad in that sense. I had actually forgotten the hike up was 5 miles and for some reason thought 4.5. I kept thinking I'd hit signal ridge any second but it kept going and going. I started passing hikers along the way. I stopped very briefly once I got to the open ridge. The cooler air felt great after the stifling air in the trees. I took a quick photo of the tower up on the summit where I was headed. I liked the way the kids' shirts made the photo colorful. 

From the ridge to the summit really isn't as far away as it looks so I was up there in no time. I figured I was a good 10 minutes slower for the whole climb compared to 2015, but somehow I did it over 3 minutes faster! Yay! Felt like death. Still faster. Good sign. 1:29:04 from the start to the summit. I stopped on the wooden tower to rest a bit. I drank my entire Hydrapack bottle of Nuun and half my second Hydrapack of water. The breeze was nice, but unfortunately the black flies were swarming me quickly so I was only able to take about a 5 minute break before heading back down. Got some good photos, though. There was a cloud inversion over the MWV which I tried to capture. And the sun hit Signal Ridge perfectly for a cool shot. 

Very muddy

I took the run down really easy. I wasn't breaking any records for the decent today. I actually expected for it to be slippery, but all of sudden the trail seemed to be drying up as the temperature rose. By the time I got within 1.5 miles of the end, one of the bog bridges that had been soaking wet on the way up was now completely dry. Of course this made question my decision not to do the loop since the trail down the back probably wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But oh well. I still felt like I had done enough. By the time I got down to the bottom, I was drenched in sweat and felt so hot that I went right down to the brook under the bridge and dunked my entire self in. It was cold but man did it feel SO good. I felt so much better. 

Very technical like this most of the way

Post brook dunk

I changed clothes then headed back home, stopping at the Cider Company along the way. Walked into a tourist madhouse there, too. Go away!! Haha.

Once home, I showered then took Phoenix with me to Fryeburg for a short walk up Jockey Cap. It was really hot by this time so this short .6 mile walk was more than enough. Phoenix didn't seem to mind getting back in the cool car. I went right across the street to Saco River Brewing after and left her in the car with it running and the a/c on. I only had one beer but took some cans to go.

I LOVE my new sunglasses. Even though you can see my selfie arm in the photos, you can't see my eyes to see how old I look. Haha.

As planned, we headed to Conway Lake to do some kayaking. I don't normally bring Phoenix since my kayak isn't really set up for passengers and it gets uncomfortable with her in my lap. But today, I just didn't want to leave her behind. And she loves it. Just sits in my lap and looks around at the boats and birds. She doesn't move around at all; just content to sit in my lap. I paddled out and back about 4.5 miles total. So nice to be out on the lake. I love it.

The drive to the lake on Potter Rd. I put in at the quiet area instead of the motor boat area.

I swear I wasn't trying to do one of those up above makes-me-look-thinner photos. It was the only way I could get both of us in the shot.

Friday, 6/28- 3.3 miles. I SO didn't want to work a 10 hour shift in North Conway today, but I was needed there more than the track so I agreed. Part of the problem is my partner. Don't get me wrong. I like him despite so many reasons I shouldn't. He's the poster child for a Trump supporter and the laziest EMS provider. He tells you the same story over and over and over. But, honestly, he is someone who would be there for anyone in an emergency. He is the type of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. But working with him SUCKS. It's not that he's not a good provider. That's not the issue. He's just so burned out that he has become the LAZIEST provider. So I wasn't too keen on the first call when he didn't even help with patient care prior to transport. He shut the door and walked away to socialize while I did all the vitals, gathered medical HX, etc. Once I was done doing everything, he came back and offered to tech the call. Really? After I've already done everything. He knew I would say no, so it was just a fake attempt at being helpful. And it was fine; I didn't mind teching the call although he could have given the guy some zofran, but whatever. The next two calls were definitely ALS calls so he HAD to tech them, but he still stood back to let the ALS providers on rescue do all the work on scene. The only time he did anything was just to one-up another provider by using a 14 gauge needle for an IV since the other person had done a 16 gauge. It was totally just to show off and this was a serious patient. Not the time for playing who has the biggest balls. While doing this IV he got blood EVERYWHERE. I literally spent about 25 minutes after the call cleaning up blood. That shit congeals fast so it took a lot of scrubbing, thus delaying our turn-around time. It's just annoying working with him most of the time. Luckily, though, when the shit really hits the fan, he does step up and he does it well so there is still a good AEMT in there when you need it. 

I was so happy when 5pm rolled around. I'll never pick up a regular Friday shift again. Plus, John was at home alone all day, although he messaged me to say that he and his dad took a walk. I had told him he had to walk to the library at 2:30pm for the Teen Time thing unless he and his dad did something in the morning. I also told him that if it was just too hot (which it was) or he wasn't comfortable doing the library walk then he didn't have to go. Since he walked with his dad, I said it was fine he skipped the library thing. But I still hated leaving him all day and then the rest of the evening while I went to the Friday Night Vertical Race. I had about an hour in between at least. 

I was happy to be heading up to Black Mt to run. After doing nothing all day other than Upper Body and Abs (I brought my equipment), I really needed to run. For once, my legs wouldn't be trashed for the race so I hoped for a better time than the last time on this course.

On the way up to Black

Once I got up there I saw that Haley was there so I knew I wouldn't be winning, but I was still happy to have some competition to push me faster. I did a half mile warm up then hung out with people before the start. As we lined up, I noticed a fast looking girl there. Hmm. I was going to have more competition than I thought. This all turned out to be good. As we started, I fell in behind this unknown woman, and Haley fell in behind me. She's been doing really well at pacing herself better this year than before so she was starting off conservatively. The girl in front of us was moving at a quick pace and seemed to be doing it with ease so I made an effort to keep up with her, but she started to get more of a lead on us a little bit and that's when I told Haley she needed to go ahead of me and pass this other woman. With less than 2 miles for the entire race, I didn't want her to hold back too long so that she ran out of time, and at this point it seemed like this girl could give us both a run for our money. So Haley went on and passed her easily and continued to pull away for the rest of the race. I thought for sure I was going to be 3rd woman to finish since I was trying really hard to just keep up with this other woman. But all of a sudden we got to a longer steep section that I powerhiked up and caught right up with her. She still maintained a lead but once we hit one of the steep downhills, I knew I was going to catch her and was right on her heels. One more steep section of powerhiking followed by a rough, wet downhill and I was past her and just about to catch up with Kevin Tilton when I stepped in some sucking mud and came out of it without my shoe. Haha. I started laughing and went back to quickly grab my shoe as it was beginning to fill with water and sink. The woman passed me right after I grabbed my shoe. Dammit. I stepped off to the side to put it back on. I hoped I could just slide it back on, but that didn't work so I had to untie it, put it on and retie it. I felt like I did this fairly quickly, but after watching the Strava Fly By, I could see that it took almost exactly 40 seconds. Only one other person passed me by. But damn, now I had to push hard again to catch back up to the 2nd woman. I knew this last part of the race was mostly steep so I was hoping my powerhiking would get me back in 2nd. It took some time and all out effort, but I caught back up to her and passed by just before we started the last stretch up the service road to the finish. I was able to catch back up with Kevin here, but I never passed him, just stayed about 2 seconds back. I took one look back at the now 3rd place woman before we turned for the final steep climb to the finish just to make sure she wasn't close enough to catch me. I was good and finished 2nd woman and finishing 1.5 minutes faster than the last time we did this course on June 7th. Wow. That was with the stop for the shoe, too! Definitely helps to have competition. It felt good to push it. And knowing how long I had to stop and still finished less than a minute behind Haley means I wasn't that far behind her before my shoe came off. Full series results for the first 5 races.

I love the putting on the brakes shot and Squall's head!

I hung out after with Haley and other girl who turned out to be Lydia Gill. I don't know her, but she's taken a few of my Strava CRs lately and appeared on numerous others so I knew of her. She's super nice. In med school at Dartmouth but from Tamworth. I feel like such loser when I meet these young women who are doctors or in med school. Haha. She appears to be a very good runner and will be back this Friday at FNV so I will have my work cut out for me again. I'm a little hesitant to push it with Loon on Sunday, though, so I may not go all out. I missed this course the first time so I don't know it at all. We'll see how I feel on Friday.

So I found out while I was at the lift summit from Bryan that John had lied to me. He and Bryan never took a walk. John's first big lie! Haha. He just didn't want to go to the library. I was annoyed with Bryan's texts but more annoyed with John so I had to leave the summit to call him and then ran down alone after that just so I could think about it before hanging out with people again. John admitted to lying because he didn't want to go to the library or FNV. I told him there was no reason to lie. Just tell me the truth. I said if you didn't want to go just tell me that. We always talk through this stuff. And there was nothing wrong with him having a down day after doing so much physical activity over the week with his dad. (Swimming down the river and then walking back to the car). I told him lying just breaks a trust which means I'm not going to be as likely to let him stay home by himself like that again. I'm not into punishments. I'm more into reason because I feel like he'll understand it better when I don't leave him alone next time. Consequences. I feel those are better learned from. But when I got home, I told him that he had had too much screen time and didn't take care of the dogs like he should have so I made him shut off the games, take the dogs out and do his summer reading. It wasn't to punish him. I made it clear that he needed a break from the screens and that one of his responsibilities when home alone was to take out the dogs. He failed to do that. He was trying to give me his mad angry at me face during all of this, but it was just so funny to me that I busted out laughing which caused him to break his mad facade, and he started laughing. Our talk was more in depth than I'm writing here, and I'm happy with the way it worked out. I want him to know that he can talk to me and not be afraid of punishments so that he lies instead. So far that's worked out. Will it forever? Maybe not. But I'm going to be optimistic and hope that it does. If it doesn't then I'll have to change my course of action. But if we can trust each other it is so much better of a relationship. I have a lot of teen years ahead, though. And I'm just winging it day to day.

Saturday, 6/29- 10 miles. I had absolutely zero motivation to run today. I almost didn't. I woke up sore and tired even after sleeping in. But I knew Sunday would be low miles with the race so I got myself out the door for a slog on the roads. I didn't enjoy this run at all and ran this particular route slower than I ever have before. It's actually slightly modified since I ran the RR tracks instead of Route 16 out and back so that did account for some of the slower pace, but not enough to be an excuse. Haha. The weather was perfect so no excuse there either. Just totally not into it. Ran up through Bald Hill and back the Kanc. 1:21:52. 8:08 avg pace. 894ft of elevation gain. Meh-est of the Meh.

After I got back and showered I took John to the Squam Lake Science Center. I mentioned in the previous post that I got us a pass from the Conway Library so it only cost us $10 total. Sweet deal and this place is just cool. Even though John's too old for the playscape, he appreciated seeing the animals more and reading the signs. So it was actually a better experience for him. We first came here in 2014, 3 days before I left Bryan. Haha. The next time was in 2016. I didn't realize it had been 3 years since we were last here. The place was surprisingly not crowded at all. In fact, all the trailheads in the area hardly had a car in them. So weird considering tourists were everywhere. 

Pretty sure it wanted to eat us.

Really beautiful bear there.

I've taken a photo of us every time we've been here so here are all three. We've both changed a lot over the years.

2014

2016

2019

We stopped at the Squam Lake Marketplace down the street after and got really good sandwiches. I wish I were rich so I could shop at a place like that with so much good stuff. I have way too rich of tastes. I did grab two Squam Supply Co beers to take home.

We filled up the water jugs at the Sandwich Spring on the way home. Phoenix was not happy about being left today so she parked herself right in front of her door of the car and glared at me so that I couldn't leave without her again. Haha.

I didn't drive anywhere but took them on a short walk on one of our trails.

Sunday, 6/30- Cranmore Hill Climb- 6.4 miles. I was happy for the local race which meant we didn't have to get up too early, but I still wanted more sleep. I woke up still tired and even more sore than I was the day before. WTF? I didn't know if it was from FNV or Zuzka Light, but it was my legs so it had to be from running. Ugh.

I had signed both John and me up for this race. It's a small White Mountain Milers event on its 32nd year! The Cranmore Hill Climb and the Cranmore Mountain Race used to be the same thing until Paul stepped down as President from the Milers and decided to make the Mountain Race an Acidotic Race. Similar to how I made my race a Six03 race instead of a Milers race. Both races needed to go a separate path although I still have mostly Milers as volunteers at my race. I wanted full control over my race once I stepped down as Treasurer of the Milers because I felt like they wanted to control too much of it. It made sense since the proceeds went to Tin Mountain anyway and not the Milers. Plus, I wanted full control on how I spent the money on shirts, awards, food, etc. 

But anyway, the Milers decided to continue the Cranmore Hill Climb in its original format and while it doesn't get the numbers the Mountain Race gets, I think it still has its place on the race circuit, and I was happy to be able to take part in it this year. This course, however, is NOT my cup of tea. It's uphill only on the service road. Not steep enough to do a lot of powerhiking (even though I did anyway), but still all uphill with an occasional semi-flat section. Just not my strength. With Kara Haas signed up I knew I probably couldn't beat her on this type of 100% runnable course. I also worried about Hilary McCloy who is super strong and really good at this type of course. There were a few other women there I didn't know who looked like they could be strong so I had no idea how the race would work out.

I let John sleep awhile longer while I went for a 2 mile warm up. I followed the first part of the course that cuts across the base of the mountain just to see what it was like. I was SO sore, but I didn't tell anyone; I knew they'd think I was just being a sandbagger and I didn't want to be a bag of excuses. The course went through the fun park but still had a small uphill before going back down behind the fitness center to start the long climb up the service road. I used to run the service road all the time when I lived down the street on Valley View Rd, but I hadn't run it once since we moved to Albany in 2013. It's not like I don't run all around there, but running up the service road had lost its appeal. Back in 2013 I actually created a Strava segment for the Cranmore Service Rd. In fact, I created numerous Strava segments in the Valley then. Literally, Kevin Tilton, Jim Johnson and I were the only ones in the Valley who used Strava back then. At some point in 2015, Strava deleted a lot of segments I had created. No idea why, but they all went missing at the same time. The Cranmore Service Rd was one of them, but fortunately, someone created a new segment of the service road and called it the Cranmore Hill Climb. My fastest time up it was in this segment so I was happy to have an idea of what time I would run up road. (The segment only includes the service rd). In August of 2013, I ran up it in 29:04. I figured with the additional half mile and it actually being a race I could possibly run it in a similar time as that. I would end up running very close to that time for the total race and 26:20 for the service road. Not bad.

Around 8:30am, I got John up. He lucked out to have his friend, Dylan, there doing the race, as well. Phew. I knew they would end up walking it together. So John was happy about that. They lined up at the back and I lined up near the front with Kim Proulx. Kara and two other women were lined up ahead of us. I didn't want to go out too hard for this first part so once we started, I fell back into 5th for the women. Freddi Triback took it out really fast, so I thought for a minute that I couldn't catch her, but she finally slowed it down a bit as we got closer to the fitness center, and I went by. Kara had a huge lead over everyone right from the start. I was hoping the two women in front of me would slow as we hit the service road, but they didn't. They both looked strong so I wasn't sure I'd catch them. This first part is a very gentle grade so I held back a little waiting for the steep section coming up. It's not a long section, but it's one of the steepest parts of the whole road so I was planning to powerhike it. I was able to pass one of the women just before it and then managed to powerhike past the other woman as she was running up it. Unfortunately, it would be awhile before I got to anything else where I would powerhike so I was suffering quickly. I wasn't very back from Kara after the steep section, but as soon as the grade lessened she pulled away again. I could always see her, but I never could make any gains again. I took some water at the water stop just to wet my mouth. It was so dry.

There were only very short sections where I powerhiked, and they were definitely runnable, but I felt like my HR and breathing were out of control, and powerhiking gave me a chance to breathe before running again. I kept focusing on Kara, but I knew I had no chance as we came by the base of Easy St. It was only a short distance from here to the summit at this point. As I approached the top of the climb, something told me to take a look back. It was only .1 miles to go, but I'm glad I did because Hilary was literally right there. I felt like I had nothing left, but apparently I did because I fired up the engines for some speed to the finish. I was not getting passed here! Came through 2nd female in 28:55, only 9 seconds ahead of Hilary. Phew. I was dying and had to just keep walking. I couldn't talk. I had no breath. That short race was just really hard for me. Great training, though, for sure! I walked to the Meister Hut bathroom and splashed my face with cold water. It felt so good! Full Results

Pushing to the finish

I ran into Hilary on the way back over to the finish area. She said she was confident she would have caught me if I hadn't looked back, and I think she's definitely right. I don't know what made me look back at that point, but I'm glad I did. 

I hung out with Kim again until she left with a group to run. I hung out waiting for John. The black flies were pretty bad, but I found this perfect spot right behind a ski lift pole where I hardly had any flies around me. It was quite a long time before John and Dylan came up last to finish. They had just walked slowly up, but then decided to duke it out to the finish. They broke into a sprint and were dead even when John caught up just before the finish, but Dylan got the upper hand. It was so much fun to watch.

John actually got ahead of Dylan right after this and then Dylan got it back as they crossed the line.

John and Dylan took the lift down. I had planned to do the same thing, but I felt like running down Charlie Doesn't Surf instead. I tried to follow the Mountain Race Course, but it was really overgrown so it sucked. Haha. 

We hung out for awards and I finally got to talk to Kara a little bit and meet her husband who turned out to be the guy I ran with a lot of the race. 

It was fun little race despite not being my favorite style of course. It's just fun being with the local runners for a good cause. 

As I got back to the car, I had a notification from eBay that I was super excited about...

The best part is that the seller is in Portsmouth so I should have the "new" watch by Loon! Yay! I wish I knew her in person so that I could have just picked it up instead of paying the shipping, but whatever. I'm so happy to have another watch. It's exactly the same one as my old one. And I got it for a deal. I didn't really need that extra shift that got cancelled, although it would have helped.

We went right home after that. Thunderstorms started right around noon and were scattered for the next 7 hours. Later on I took Phoenix and Chill with me to Walmart but stopped first for a walk on the RR tracks. The rest of the day would be scattered thunderstorms off and on. We only walked a mile and caught in some rain on the way back, but they were happy for the walk. The dogs tend to get the shaft in the summer just because it's too hot to leave them in the car when we go somewhere so by the time we get back, I only do something short with them.

See? Can't see the eyes so I could pass for 10 years younger! Haha.

I was all done the rest of the evening except for another 15 minute upper body and abs workout. John was happy to veg out after his 3 mile hike and thunderstorms sealed the deal for him. I was glad he participated in the Hill Climb without a bad attitude. Having Dylan there made it fun. And we found out Dylan is doing middle school XC in the fall. I'd love to get John out there, too. Not for the running part but for the team aspect. No better team cohesion than a XC team.

On a different note, I'm about to apply for another job. Good pay and benefits. I'm nervous about it since it means zero free days for me ever. Literally never a free day. That's one of the reasons I've stayed at this job. But a Monday-Friday job is a rarity here so I have to jump on it and at least try. My job here at Careplus is on its way out so it's inevitable, but I know I'm going to hate the change. Hate it. But I can't sustain my life financially as an EMT anymore. It will be nice being home every night, but without a free day, I don't know if I'll stay happy. But I guess happiness needs to take a backseat right now because I'm barely hanging on financially. And John has a school trip to Copenhagen in October, and I have no idea how to pay for it. If I made even just $100/wk more than here I could put enough away to pay most of it and have Bryan pay the rest. I don't know. It's a scary change. But to be honest, I can't worry about it yet. My chances of getting the job are minimal anyway. I'm not qualified for much more than loser jobs. What a life I've made for myself. Such a failure career-wise due to poor choices. I can blame 9/11/01 for some of it, but not for what I chose after that.

So upcoming...Loon Mountain Race! My 9th year in a row! I'm looking forward to it. I had a good race last year and would hope that I'm faster this year. I'm in way better shape, but then again, I was in way better shape in 2017 than 2018 and ran a slower pace overall. So who knows. I think it will just depend on how I feel on race day. I'm not sure who my masters competition is besides Christin Doneski and Kara Haas, but I'm expecting someone to surprise me. I know I can't beat Christin but Kara will be a toss-up. I beat her by a minute last year. She can beat me on the uphills, but I can get ahead of her on the nordic section and that downhill before Upper Walking Boss, but I don't know if that will be enough. I think we'll be close but it could go either way. We'll definitely push each other at least so that will help for a good race. I could go through the entrants' list again, but it's so damn long that I don't feel like it. And honestly, it doesn't matter. I'm more interested in how well I do for myself nowadays and if that leads to a win or a top 3 finish overall or masters then I'm happy with that. I'm all about the effort I can put in. I'm not going into it with any nervousness. Just going to do my best. It's so nice going into races like this now. So much more fun to be less stressed. I'll get in competitive mode once I settle into the race.

I was planning to jump into a 4th of July 5K tomorrow. Even brought the clothes for it, but now I'm thinking that it would be a bad idea. Taking a zero day today due to being overly tired yesterday so it has me thinking I should skip the speed and just go for an easier mountain run instead before it gets too hot then enjoy the 4th. Get out on the kayak. Have some beer. I don't know what else. Maybe nothing else.