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| Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, MA |
The week's total mileage: 42.4 miles. I did manage to get in some decent elevation gain at 7,749ft. So like I said lower mileage week for the 3rd week in a row, just to compensate for the all of the racing/recovery I needed. After this week is a 2 week race break so I'll up the mileage back up closer to 50 miles then.
Monday, 8/5- Zero miles. Walked on the trail out back for 2 miles and then did my glute work.
I was expecting a job I've been eyeing to appear on Indeed.com so I was constantly checking all day long, but it was just crickets. This one looked fun...until I saw the description. Thanks for ruining my fun, Northeast Catholic College.
Tuesday, 8/6- 9.5 miles. I drove straight to Brownfield from work to run the Burnt Meadow/Stone Mt Loop. August brings me back here for either a hike or run. It has been precursor for significant life events. John and I did our first hike here just two days before Coy would suddenly pass away. And speaking of, I've been missing her and Spot a lot lately. Time is moving away from their presence too fast. I loved my sweet girls.
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| Seaside, California 2009 |
I had forgotten just how much elevation gain over a short run this is. It's a pretty steep somewhat technical run up and down Burnt Meadow, followed by an easier climb up Stone Mt where I stopped to pick blueberries. The last time I was on this part of the trail was in the snow on Thanksgiving Day in 2016, and a logging operation had destroyed it. I was happy to find the trail wonderfully rerouted around the mess today. 4.8 miles total in 1:13:59 with 2,057ft of elevation gain. Quite the burn in my legs.
One thing I love about August is that the bugs start to die down. They come back when it's really humid, but otherwise, it's safe to hangout outside now.
I didn't want to do anything but rest up for the James Wellinghurst Memorial Race that evening so I took John and Phoenix to the lake.
I got to the race start early around 5pm to register and then drove to the finish line at Silver Lake Railroad. The run back to the start would be my warm up. 1.7 miles. I chatted with some people before the start, including Rich Fargo's dad who was one of the first certified EMTs.
We finally lined up at the start. Only a few guys wanted to be on the line so I stepped up there, too. Might as well. We were off. The first mile is nearly all downhill so it's easy to get carried away here. Luckily, I was with Darin Brown, Tim Livingston and a kid a he was pacing. I knew they would run a smart 1st mile so I just hung with them. The pace felt comfortable and not too fast. 5:54 for mile 1. Mile 1 ends just as you are about to turn onto Danforth Ln which is all uphill. Darin pushed ahead here, but I used him to pull me along. The kid Tim was pacing slowed here so I passed the two of them. Danforth Ln turns into a dirt road with sections of poor footing before the right turn onto another dirt road for a nice downhill break before climbing once again. There are no photos from the race other than 2 from the water stop at the bottom of this hill before you turn right again on a gravelly road.
After the final short climb, I hit mile 2. 6:55 for this split. Pretty slow, but approximately 121ft of climbing and rough footing make this a slow mile. Mile 3 is nearly all downhill again with the last ~.4 miles flat to the finish. Darin had easily passed the guy who was in 3rd, and he quickly fell back to me with about a half mile to go when I passed him, as well. With only him in sight as I turned for the last flat stretch, I knew I had 1st woman in the bag. Finished in 18:36 (mile 3: 5:58), 23 seconds slower than my fastest time on the course in 2015. I'll take it. I wish I could take it as a 5K time, but this course is short by about .1 miles.
It was so hot and humid during the race so I hopped in the lake to cool off and was immediately freezing. Haha. Stayed for the awards which was a Madison Old Home Week t-shirt like always, except I really like this year's shirt and will actually wear it.
After the race, I figured doing it was probably a mistake since it was only 2 days after Run 4 Kerri and 4 days before Bridge of Flowers, but I honestly was like, "Whatever." Haha.
Evening John antics. He put his shorts on as a whole body suit and started jumping around the kitchen. Haha. He asked me to take his photo.
If I'm on the couch, then I must want to play ball...
Wednesday, 8/11- Zero miles. I was trying to be smart so I took another zero day to recover. We were busy so I didn't do any glute work or walks. That evening, we had the most rain I've ever seen fall in such a short period of time. It started suddenly and within 2 minutes we were toned for a fire standby (which turned out to be flooding). We made it just over a mile before we both got flash flood warnings on our phones. I'm not lying when I say it was less than a minute from the alert to when the rain got even heavier. I couldn't even see, and the road immediately began flooding. I've never seen anything like that here. The entire strip through North Conway was completely flooded. It took us 11 minutes to get where we were going in the village. It was insane. Water was rushing down in waterfalls on the uphill side of the road. I wanted to get some videos and photos, but I was driving. These are from the newspaper page. We were actually parked right behind those buildings when this was taken since the lower floor under Olympia Sports was flooded. 2.94 inches of rain fell over the course of an hour.
Thursday, 8/8- 12.3 miles. This ended up being a mistake. I should not have run this far today. My legs were DYING the last 2 miles. I decided to do one of the long variations of a Moat Mineral Site Loop (mostly) run starting at the High School Loop lot. I totally should have driven down to the Mineral Site Trail lot for 8 miles instead, but I thought I was fine. I actually felt great at first and even beat my own Strava CR on segment of the high school loop that I had gotten back in October of 2014 when I was actually at my fastest ever. Beat it by 5 seconds. But...it all slowed down from there. Haha. The weather was crazy wacky. Started out at about 90% humidity and cloudy for the first 6 miles, then downpoured for 4 miles and finished off the last two miles in the sun and humidity. I must have really looked bad when I passed some people and one woman yelled ahead to the others, "Jogger coming through!" Haha. I almost quit running forever after hearing that. :) 12.3 miles in 2:09:07. As it turned out, me feeling beat didn't mean I ran that slowly after all. This is the 3rd time I've done this exact loop. I ran this 12 minutes faster than the previous two which were only 9 seconds apart in time. Although that made me feel better about my speed, it didn't make me feel better that I overdid it. 2,036ft of elevation gain.
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| After running in the rain |
I took her on a walk on the Conway Rec Path. Not that far. Only 1.7 miles out-and-back. Then we drove over to Saco River Brewing for 2 new releases today. I love it that these happen on Thursdays and that there are no stupid lines. I also like it that the Thursday bartender knows my name. Haha. Some would say that's not a good thing, but I like to say it's like having my own Cheers. Phoenix joined me at the picnic table outside.
Friday, 8/9- 3.6 miles. I had actually planned to run farther, but I was SO done after just a mile and shortened the loop on the mountain bike trails in the Green Hills. Phoenix joined me. 36:27 for time. After this run, I felt for sure that Bridge of Flowers the next day would be a disaster.
I got in an upper body and abs workout today. The only one I would do this week. I told myself I was too beat, but it was really just laziness.
John had his teen thing at the library that afternoon so I dropped him off then headed down to Sandwich to fill up our water jugs at the spring and take the dogs on a short walk on the Flat Mountain Pond Trail. This isn't a heavily used trail, but I just happened to run into someone I haven't talked to or seen (except once briefly at a race registration) in over 2 years now. I used to be friends with him and his wife, but his wife happens to be the one I jokingly call my mortal enemy. I never really had a problem with him at all, but I did (wrongly) post a screenshot on FB over a year ago that I shouldn't have after I saw a FB comment of his showing his disdain for people from Massachusetts. I ended up taking it down because me posting it wasn't the right thing to do. Just leaving his post for everyone to see on their own and make their own judgement about it was more than enough. But I realized after the fact that I did it out of anger. Anger over what transpired with his wife and actually somewhat angry at him for staying with her after she wrongly accused us of having an affair. But that anger didn't really begin with him. I think a lot of it came from my own situation with Bryan who also falsely accused me of having an affair many times over the last two years of our marriage. I look back in anger at myself for staying that long. For allowing myself to be treated like that for TWO years when I never once cheated on him or did anything wrong. So I think that anger at myself made me lash out at this person for the same reason. Basically, why did you stay with someone who doesn't trust you even though you're telling the truth? We never had an affair. I never hung out with him. I was never even once attracted to him, but his wife accused me of this 3 times over the course of 6 months. So I was angry, and I equated her with being just like Bryan. I'll be honest that I have no regrets trying to cut her out of my life even before that. But I do feel badly about that post on FB. Luckily no harm was done in the end.
So anyway, I see him running towards me, and I honestly felt no anger at all towards him. It was only a brief moment as we passed and spoke to each other. It was friendly and nice to at least have a positive interaction, and I actually felt a little more at peace as we each continued on our separate ways. But I was left with also such a feeling of regret. Regret for how all of this turned out. Two people I was friends with and had/still have so much in common with that suddenly went awry. I initially just tried to step away from them silently in the beginning when I felt she was behaving erratically. I wanted to remain friendly but at a good distance. I have no idea how it got from that to a false accusation, followed by rumors she was spreading about me which made no sense. Excluding John, I spend about 90% of my life alone, not out trying to break up people's marriages (this is the rumor she spread). I understand where some of her underlying issues come from, and I'm actually sympathetic to that, but one has to recognize when she might be out of control and take responsibility for it. And who knows, maybe she's doing that now. I have no idea, and I have no desire to ever have her in my life again; I'm sure that feeling is mutual. But it really is all just such a shame.
The walk was short since I had to get back to John. The rest of the day was spent back at the house, and I went to bed pretty early since I had to get up at 3:15am for the long drive to Shelburne Falls, Ma for the race.
Saturday,8/10- Bridge of Flowers 8K- 7 miles. I'll admit that the drive was a bit rough at times. It was about 3.5 hours to Shelburne Falls. Despite that, I was really looking forward to another new-to-me Grand Prix race. I wasn't nervous at all because I thought for sure I had blown it with any type of decent race by overdoing it. I actually thought I'd run the race in 34-35 minutes. I barely broke 33 minutes last year at Ribfest, and with the hill on this course slowing most people's times down by a minute, I honestly believed that's what I would run. The masters field was also stacked and in my mind had myself finishing no better than 6th master.
When we arrived, I opted to park in the lot right behind the Blue Rock Restaurant where the awards were and only .1 away from the start of the race. I got there early because I assumed this lot would fill fast, but I was surprised to find it mostly empty instead. It never did fill up completely, and it was a very small lot. Most people parked at the school where the registration was, but I wanted John to be hanging out closer to the race and the awards. It was the perfect parking spot. I had plenty of woods and took Phoenix out briefly to use the bathroom before running to the school to get my bib number. Just like every Grand Prix race, it was a reunion of sorts. Saying hi to so many people. I talked to Dave Dunham for a few minutes but had no idea he was really sick. I can't believe he ran that race like that, but it did explain why I never saw him at the start or pass me by within the first half mile.
I couldn't help but run across the Bridge of Flowers both to and from the school. Omg. It was SO beautiful! I was smiling from ear-to-ear and the smell of all the flowers reminded me of the flower garden in front of our house in California.
I hung out at the car for awhile before the start. I wasn't ready to stand in the corral yet. With 15 minutes to the start I ran just shy of a half mile before going into the women's corral where I saw some people I knew on the WMDP team. I'll be honest that I love the 10 minutes before the start of the GP races when I get to see and talk to so many of the women I know from all the different teams. Christin joined me, and then I realized Sybil Shapiro was right in front of us so I talked to her too. She was the 1st master at Run 4 Kerri the week before. If you look closely, you can see Christin and I talking in the corral about 3 rows back in the center. Amy joined us, and I assumed she was being a sandbagger (it's a joke among us that Whirlaway is a bunch of sandbaggers, so I say this in jest) when she said she was going to finish behind us. I told her there was NO WAY. My legs were totally shot. Well, I turned out to be the real sandbagger...even though my story was true. Haha.
It was finally go time, but I had only made it few steps when this much older woman was all of a sudden right in front of me. I still have no idea where she came from since she isn't in the photo above. My only guess is that maybe she was running late and just stepped onto the line last second. But man, that was a dangerous move on her part. I ran right into her right arm and almost knocked her down, but thankfully, I was quick enough to grab her right wrist to keep her upright. Christin saw the whole thing and was just as shocked as I was. We both thought this woman just came out of nowhere. Crazy enough, someone caught this moment in one of the photos that was shared.
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| Blurry but zoomed in so you can see it better. |
Fortunately, this only lasted a split second, and I was moving along with the crowd again. The course has a brief downhill before quite a bit of climbing. Knowing the hill to come in mile 3, I did not want to go out too fast. I was still next to Christin when Amy blew by us and I jokingly said to Christin, "Look at that sandbagger!" Haha. Right after that, Christin moved ahead, and she and Amy were in a large pack of men and women. I hung back, but I didn't let the distance between us change as we made our way up and around streets on this side of the river. Mile 1 was all uphill for the first 3/4 before we got a nice downhill break. 6:15 for mile 1. (I never actually looked at my watch once the entire race.) The beginning of mile 2 had a slight uphill followed by a gentle downhill. About halfway through this I noticed Christin was falling back. She looked like she was favoring her bad knee, like it was really obvious. So asked her how her knee was and she respond, "Not good." I still figured she would catch back up and smoke me on the big hill coming up, but she never did. The downhills had already taken their toll on her knee. I stayed just behind the same group I'd been behind from the beginning with Amy Bernard, Kelsey Allen and Emily Raymond running almost side by side. There were a few other younger women in this group whom I didn't know. We crossed back over the same bridge we started on and began the dreaded climb. I'm not sure what the accurate stats are for this climb, but Strava shows it as climbing 349ft over .6 miles with an average grade of 9.7% This would be an easy climb in a mountain/trail race but not when you are trying to run with speed in a short road race. The beginning of climb was the mile 2 point, and I do remember the guy yelling out 12 minutes and something seconds. I was happy with that. Mile 2 would end up being 6:05.
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| The beginning of the climb in mile 3 |
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| The grade is much steeper than it looks. |
I continued to bomb down the road as fast as I could. I knew there was a short uphill at some point from studying the elevation profile, but I couldn't remember where. This downhill went on forever. Hit mile 4 in 5:47 which turned out to be the bottom of the hill and the beginning of the short climb. This was not as easy to change gears, but at least it was a more gradual hill before once again hitting the last steep downhill before the flat finish over the bridge. I never once looked back, but I thought for sure that Amy had to be right behind me. It turned out that the closest woman back was almost 30 seconds behind me. I still hadn't looked at my watch the whole race so I had no idea where I was as we approached the turn for the bridge.
As we hit the bridge, I could see the clock still in the 31 minutes!!! What?!!! It was about to hit 32, but even then, I couldn't believe it. I did not expect this at all on this course. I pushed as hard as I could and finished in 32:16. 19th female and 3rd master! My last .97 miles was a 5:52. The entire course would end up with 534ft of gain. Full Results
As soon as I finished I caught up with Sybil and Will Sanders. Sybil had run a really good race finishing 2nd master. Will was 3rd overall. I talked to Dave Principe, Bronson Venable and Amy Bernard for a bit. I didn't realize this was the first time Amy and Dave had ever met. I forget not everyone has such spread out connections like I do. We walked over to see the results then I spotted my CMS teammates. I always miss the team photo, so I was not letting that happen today.
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| I'm never wearing that sports bra again. |
I ran back to the car to attempt to wake John up but it was to no avail. We were hiking the mountain across the valley afterwards so I figured I would just let him sleep as long as possible. I changed clothes and went to the awards. This ended up being really fun. The beer was really good. I ran into Ed Sheldon and his wife first then found Sybil and Will, with whom I would hang out with the rest of the time. Sybil was bumming because they wouldn't let her get a beer without an id. That meant walking all the way back to the school. I was like, "Here. Just use my ID." Haha. Sybil was like ok and came back with beer. Haha. I love it that at age 41 she had to use a fake ID to get a beer. We just hung out chatting for awhile. Fitz joined us looking pretty rough. After he explained their day-long "party" the day before, it made sense. Haha. Kim Nedeau had left so by the time they called us up for the age group award, it was just Sybil and me.
We both won beer glasses, and I got a $25 gift certificate to Marathon Sports. We parted ways after that so I could wake John up to see the Bridge of Flowers and then go hiking.
John was NOT enthused about seeing the bridge or hiking. I was bummed he was in such a bad mood for the walk over the bridge, but luckily, this turned him around. He was completely pleasant and having fun the rest of the time.
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| The sign had a picture of a dog walking on a leash with a slash through it so I carried Phoenix across. Haha. |
The hike up was slow, but John was seriously enjoying it. With about a quarter of a mile to go, we ran into Bruce on his way down. He asked if we wanted him to hike back up so he could get some photos for us. I said sure so he left again for the hike back up. I didn't expect such a cool tower when we got up there.
The inside was just like a lighthouse. Bruce tried to take some photos of us peaking out of the doorway but it was too dark. You can kind of see us, though. We got a good one in the doorway then walked to the top. The very top was closed since it's still a working fire tower, but it was cool. Phoenix would disagree. She didn't like it at all. Haha.
Bruce headed back down while we were still up there. We didn't hang out too long since the drive ahead was long. 2.8 miles total for the hike. 1,023ft of climbing. Took us almost 2 hours for the whole hike.
The drive wasn't too bad, but we got back way later than I had thought we would. Poor Chill dog. I didn't bring him because I thought the car would be too hot, but it turned out that he would have been fine. I hate that. I took him out then played stick with him for awhile. He seemed satisfied with that.
I was pretty happy to have had such a good day, the race and the hike. I shocked myself with being able to pull off that place and time with tired legs and with close to zero road training. I'm feeling really good with where I am although I'm a little nervous that I haven't allowed myself to recover well enough. I guess the next race will be the test.
Sunday, 8/11- 9.7 miles. I really wanted to get in some miles today so I decided to run the Black Cap/Cranmore Loop. I ran really easy, but with so much climbing over the 9.7 miles, it was probably not a great idea. I should have done something slightly flatter to let the legs recover more. 1:46:44. 2,371ft of elevation gain.
That afternoon, John, both dogs and I took a walk on the Pudding Pond Trail. On the way there, we drove past the American Legion where the traveling Vietam War Wall replica was set up. I had totally forgotten about it so we stopped in so I could show it to John. I saw the real wall back in 1989, but John's trip to DC didn't include it.
I wanted an easy walk but to still get John out doing something. The weather had been perfect in the morning, but by the time the walk happened, the humidity had risen and the walk was mosquito hell for the first half. Fortunately, they eased up by the pond. We picked a lot of blueberries along the way. 2.2 miles total for the walk.
I was just saying to Jeff that my blogs have been so boring and drama-free lately. For awhile there, I felt like I was bathing in drama. Haha. Life is good in the summer (except the bugs; I will never stop complaining about the bugs. Haha). And it's been a good summer. I can't believe John is about to go back to school already.
On the job front, I was able to apply for that job I've been eyeing for awhile. It finally showed up on Indeed! It's been 3 weeks since I applied and I finally had a "pre-interview", as the woman called it, over the phone last Thursday. She was actually a 3rd party and had nothing to do with the job. She was just supposed to ask questions they had given her and then transcribe my answers. I honestly don't know what the point of that was. The answers were all right there in my resume and cover letter. Plus, it's not a good way for someone to answer thoroughly. So I'm thinking I might have blown it since I haven't heard back again. It would be nice to hear back one way or another so that I can move on. I did just apply for another job I found on Indeed 2 days ago. Based on the qualifications, though, I have a feeling it's not a well-paying job. I'm actually almost over-qualified for it. How that's possible I don't know. I got a message yesterday from Indeed saying that they had looked at it, but I haven't heard back. Funny. I think I'm overqualified for the job while they probably think the opposite. Maybe I'm just not selling myself enough. Sucks trying to sell yourself with one sheet of paper. I'm going to keep looking for something, but it's really hard for me to have hope at this point since I get discouraged very easily. I will admit I was very excited to see that I at least appeared in searches for two companies on Indeed, but I think I'm extremely overqualified for the second one. :)
