Marathon Week! Week of 9-30 to 10-6

Time to toe the line (again), but this Sunday's race will be a bit different than the others this year.  Why?  26.2 miles.  In the woods.  With hills.  Coolest thing?  Jonny and Seth will be there, and will surely document my battered and broken carcass crawling across the finish line.  Both are seasoned trail runners, and of the 180 or so runners expected to attend, I'd expect them to put in a good showing.  I'm looking to shave over an hour off my time from last year, so if I go sub-5:15, I hit the goal.  Lower miles the first few days this week, then no runs at all on Thursday/Friday, and a very short run on Saturday...then it's go time!

Monday, 9-30 - A.M. - 3.5 Miles (Trails) - Pequot Woods, Mystic.  Close, right off 95, and not super hilly but has some very technical sections (i.e. lots of rock gardens), much like Nipmuck.  Good run at the pace I'd like to maintain...

Good day for a short run in the woods...

P.M. - 3.5 Miles (Trail/Roads) - Wheeler Trails and adjoining roads.  Just pokin' around, waiting for Soph's soccer practice to finish up...better than sitting on my ass in the car!

Tuesday, 10-1 - A.M. - 3 Hours (Surfing) - Finally!  Light offshore winds, sunny skies and a waist to chest high swell running at Matunuck...Lot was full when I rolled up, but I quickly ran into a bunch of people I knew, and paddled out at Trestles.  Quickly decided there were too many people on the peak, so I paddled down to Deep Hole and slayed about 20 quality waves, and got some super-long rides on the right there.  Great surf day, great exercise and it kept me from doing a long-ish run...

                         P.M. - 1 Mile (Trail) - Quick Sterling Cross Country trail before Soph's soccer game.  Holy crap, what a gorgeous school in the middle of rural Sterling, CT...I thought I'd pulled into a college campus!  Even their soccer field had a proper pitch?  With 10 minutes before game time, I wondered aloud if there were trails, and this 8 year old kid pipes up and says yes, there's a trail that runs all the way around the school.  Thanks, kid!  Short run, but nice trail.  Good hills in Sterling, too...

Wednesday, 10-2 - 2.5 Miles (Trail) - Green Falls loop (again).  Thankful that my "playground" lies within a State Park, and not a National Park...otherwise I'd have been out of luck, apparently.  Same thing applies to our race course this weekend, which is maintained by volunteers (like me!).  And oddly, 80 degrees on October 2?  Some dude took my Hidden Lake segment (not Muddy), and I'll be taking that back next week, along with my Cossaduck Hill segment, thank you very much!

That said, I'm still keeping my mileage down, but I did get a good technical run in today, slow and steady.  Good prep:



Thursday, 10-3 - 0 Miles - Spent the day chaperoning the Wheeler 6th grade science classes at the Assekonk Brook, looking for macroinvertebrate!  We found tons, including dragonfly nymph, stoneflies, mayflies, backswimmers, water striders, a leech, as well as a green frog and a bunch of crayfish!  I got to tromp around in the middle of a stream and help a bunch of excited kids get muddy and find creepy crawly things in the water, and use this as my reason to taper another day?  A win-win :)

Just hanging out, looking for critters during school hours...

Friday, 10-4 - 1.5 Miles (Trail Hike) - Hidden Lake and more, hike with my wife and the dog.  I finally got her out on a trail, and she loved it!!!  So stoked, and she wants to go for more hikes...Great day for it, too, and I thought the foliage would be great at Hidden Lake (it was), so we made the 10 minute trip out.  Looped the lake, and then went down the Narragansett Trail just a bit...

Me and the dogg...

One of the awesome footbridges at Hidden Lake

Hidden Lake, calm and colorful

Saturday, 10-5 - 3 miles (Road) - Easy run with Jim in Westerly.  Jim's 40th birthday is today, and I wanted a last little short run before tomorrow's festive romp in the woods, so I met him down at his place and we had a nice, conversational pace run, and even stopped at our old karate school to say hello to some friends.  Good, relaxed run, and now it's all about tomorrow.  In the afternoon, Lori and I went to Rhode Runner (Cool shop!) so I could grab a few things, including a new handheld with a 10oz flask that I think I might use for the first out/back (12 miles).  Should be more than enough, then I'll either switch over to the CamelBak or stick with the flask.  I think that it's a lot more efficient for me to carry as little extra weight as possible, so this might be my weapon of choice tomorrow.  I also grabbed a new pair of running shorts, a shirt and some GUs.  Thanks to Eric Lonergan, local cool fast dude, for the gift card.  It made my day!

Sunday, 10-6 - 30th Annual Nipmuck Marathon...report to follow!