Blog's Not Dead!

After banging out two ultra distance races in the last two weeks of October, I decided to shut it down for races until after the new year.  No injuries, just wanted to not have anything scheduled, and be able to do what I wanted when I could.  So I did.  Had a pretty unremarkable November, other than some good trail miles and runs with friends, and a great time spectating at the Li'l Rhody Runaround.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've gone to a race purely as a spectator, and it was a blast!  Got to see/catch up with a lot of friends, and attend a fun after race party at Jonny's place.

So I wrote off November as just a shitty, low-mileage month with a couple of highlights, and was just happy to be running at all.

But here's to a great holiday season of running!  I already have my sights set on a couple of races for 2018, too...

So we'll start off December's fun on 12/2.  Nehantic Trail, Voluntown CT - 13 miles.  Brian R., one of the CT contingent at the Yeti race (and who finished 5th overall in 19:41 for his first 100-miler), has decided to knock off all the CT blue-blazed trails and hit me up for an E2E run on the Nehantic Trail, a rugged in places but totally runnable 13-mile trail in Voluntown.  Of course I agreed, and with a last-minute shout out to the Trailmixers group, we also picked up Scott D. (another badass ultrarunner) to join us!  

After dropping a car at Green Falls, we three set out from the Hopeville Pond end of the trail.  Temps around 30-35 degrees, but very little wind and totally comfortable.  I have to say that my new hydration vest is awesome, with two soft flasks in the front and lots of stretchy pockets around the sides and back, and doesn't shift around at all.  Love it.

We stopped to take a short break at Mt. Misery before continuing on toward Green Falls:

Brian and Scott at Mt. Misery

Lots of chatting during the run, and a great overall pace.  I did the navigation, and I'm happy to report that there were no wrong turns, and I knew exactly where we were the entire time.  Not too many blowdowns, and the trail was in overall great shape.  Took about 2:30 to make the North to South run, but we weren't trying to push the pace, and covered 13 miles with about 1,400' of climbing.

After we finished up, Brian wanted to take advantage of the day, so I drove him to the Northern terminus of the Quinebaug Trail, so he could check that 8-mile stretch of trail off his list, and I called it a day!  Great way to kick off December.

We've started to get snow!  I was getting a bit discouraged about the lack of daylight hours and the turn to cold weather, but the first snow we had, I got out to the Hidden Lake area of Yawgoog and hit some untouched trails, and remembered why winter is pretty damn awesome.

Hidden Lake!  Nobody out there but me.

I've also made peace with the treadmill (sort of).  It's going to have to be a part of my training schedule, and I've found that putting on a Salomon Running playlist on YouTube definitely helps me cope with the monotony...

Not so Dread-mill?

So that said, my mileage is FINALLY coming up!  The week of Christmas I put together 32 miles, including a 15-miler at Bluff Point, a run on Napatree Point beach for the Winter Solstice, a Green Falls loop with Jim where we got lost on unmarked trails and bushwhacked, fells-style, back to my truck, and had an Xmas Eve. run at Bluff with my most frequent running friend Faith!  According to Strava, we've run 32+ hours together :)

Happy running at Bluff Point!

Mother Boulder?

Winter Solstice beach run at Napatree/Watch Hill!

Frozen Hidden Lake!

Faith at Bluff Point!

So heading into Christmas, I asked Santa (Lori) for a pair of snowshoes, as I've wanted to try some for the last couple years, but there hadn't been much snow.  And Santa delivered!

YES!  New Dion running snowshoes, and some extra running-related gear...so excited!

So there we go!  All (sort of) caught up, and gonna try to get back to some sort of regular posting.  I've restructured my racing goals for 2018, and it's basically going to include 1 race per month, not counting smaller local races.  So far, here's the official registration list:

WE100K.  Should be epic.

Return to Kismet Cliff!  3rd time.

The rest of 2018's fun will be worked out once the races have opened registration, but it'll be an interesting list for sure.  Most of the races I haven't done before.  So right now it looks like the Wapack 21.5 in May, WE100k in June, a new NH ultra (maybe?) in July (or Escarpment!), an ultra in August (Undecided, it's between two:  Ragged 50k or ADU 24), Kismet Cliff in September, and one grand finale in October.  To be continued...