To Shad Bloom or not to Shad Bloom? Week of 5-4 to 5-10

Not to Shad Bloom.  I was away last weekend, and this being Mother's Day weekend, I'm gonna pull the plug on spending the day on Block Island on Saturday, and slip in some early runs.  I'm working long hours the first part of the week, so any miles will be made up on the back half/weekend. Fortunately, the weather just took a turn into awesomeville in these last couple weeks!  Things are looking good around here...

Unfortunately, I found out that the Sportsmen's Club banned all future use of the short section of the Narragansett Trail that ran through their property, so it will have to be re-routed.  This might turn out to be a blessing in disguise though, s it was a short, comparatively mundane stretch of land.  The 'Gansett is a kickass trail, and this might make it better overall...

Monday-Wednesday - 0 Miles.

Thursday, 5-7 - 4 Miles.  Sleeping Giant State Park, Hamden CT.  For short, intense, painfully steep climbs, SGSP is close enough to make the drive worth it.  80-ish degrees and sunny, but I wanted to take a crack at a couple of segments, namely the 2/10 mile, 30% climb up the side of the "chin," alongside the old quarry there.  I also wanted to take a shot at the 1.4 mile Tower descent.  I scored a 7th on the ascent, and the GPS screwed me out of a top 5 on the descent.  I also took pictures at the tower and sign for the DEEP "Sky's the Limit" challenge!  So there's another one down.

The chin of the Giant.  Short bitch of a climb, 30% grade.

View from the top, looking south toward the Sound

Lots of this!  Yum!

From the tower for the challenge.  Nice shirt!

At the entrance for the challenge.  Take another selfie, Psycho...

Friday, 5-8 - 7.5 Miles.  Beach Run, Watch Hill/Misquamicut run with Woolley.  He's back, ladies and gents!  Back from New Zealand and ready to run.  Met Ryan at his place and we hit the foggy, mid-tide beach for an easy cruise to Taylor's place, and on to the tip of Napatree Point and back.  Great getting caught up, and a good day to have the wind at our backs on the return, as the fog burned off and it started to get really warm.  Good run!

Saturday, 5-9 - 0.

Sunday, 5-10 - 5 Mile mixer, Mystic.  Hot!  When was the last time I said that???  It got really warm here, so I thought Mystic, cool run along the water, jump onto the trails in town, blah blah blah...not so!  Still very hot, and I felt sluggish despite a slight breeze.  Upped the pace on the last couple miles, but felt it and sucked wind to get a decent pace.  I think I needed the beatdown though, as transitioning from cold running to warm running is shitty but necessary...and I almost got run over several times, almost ran over people suddenly changing directions several times, and saw an SUV that tried to climb a historic tree in front of a historic house on Pearl Street in Mystic.  Not sayin' it was texting, but I could see no other scenario for this accident.  Goddamn dumb driving there...

Thus ends a lower-than-low mileage week for me, and I missed a great race I signed up for, looked forward to, and skipped for the right reasons, but really f-ing wanted to be there.  Don't expect to see that again.  I was a miserable SOB all weekend...more so than usual, haha!  Next week will be quite different. One race on Saturday, and possibly a long trail race to jump into on Sunday if the stars align...