Resolution 5K Week - Week of 1-6 to 1-12

This week will be finished off with the Resolution 5K Beach and Trail Run, race #2 in the Winter Trail Series.  This week will also be notable if only for the fact that it's supposed to be mind-numbingly cold, and I suspect that people are either going to retreat indoors and hit the 'mills, or lower their mileage, or both.  I'm OK with running in cold temps, but I have my limit (although I'm not quite sure what it is...).

Monday, 1-6 - 3.2 Miles (Roads) - Short out and back from the house.  Nothing spectacular, sub-8 pace overall with gradually increasing pace, felt pretty good, if just a bit chilly...




Tuesday, 1-7 - 0 Miles - As cold as it was?  Good day to take a zero.  A bit envious of Jonny and Galoob scoring some indoor track time at URI, would have been a good day for that!

Wednesday, 1-8 - 4.4 Miles (Trails) - Champlin Glacier Park Trails, Westerly.  Cold, yes, but not that bad!  20-ish degrees, wind chill around 8-10?  The low parts of the trail were really nice, as the wind was totally blocked.  Nice sunny day!

View of the pond and the Ocean from the hill this afternoon :)

Thursday, 1-9 - 3.4 Miles - (Trails) - Short Lantern Hill run post dump run.  Looking to get something in, and the transfer station is right next to Lantern Hill, soooo...lots of icy patches on the really steep parts but not too treacherous.  Cool icicles on the cliffs!

Top of the hill

Big icicles

Friday, 1-10 - 4.2 Miles (Trails) - Slippery Riverwood Preserve trails with Jim.  With about an inch of fresh snow on the ground, I figured I wouldn't need the Yaks...big mistake!  The snow covered a number of places on the trail where there were sheets of ice.  Punched through to a small stream about 1/2 mile into the run, then went down hard twice in the hilly sections, once on my ass and once coming off some rocks where I executed a perfect tuck and roll down the hill.  Good fun, and some good bruises on their way, but we had a great time out there.  Very cool Westerly Land Trust property, glad I had Gazelle give me the tour a couple weeks ago!



Saturday, 1-11 - 0 Miles...Grrr...

Sunday, 1-12 - 7 Miles (Trail/Beach) - Resolution 5K (plus warmup/cooldown), Scarborough State Beach, Narragansett.  Had a great time at this race!  Showed up plenty early and met up with the WTAC crew, and was able to get in a 2 mile warmup on the course, which, after the recent storms that moved through, was very wet and very muddy.  Throughout the morning, though, I couldn't take my eyes off the ocean.  The recent storm had also kicked up the surf to overhead levels, and there were some big waves breaking out there.  I purposely left my boards at home, as I had a family event at 1 back in town, so I was left to mind-surf the waves and wonder if it would still be around for Monday.

Got lined up for the race and took off down the beach toward the jetty.  The wind was howling sideways across our route, but the Sun was out and it wasn't bad at all.  Mile 1 is 1/2 mile out to the jetty and back to the start.  Easy enough, and then mile 2 hits, with softer sand, and some sharp turns onto sand trails, with some legit ponding to cross through, followed by a very short turn onto the road before cutting back onto the trails by Black Rock.  Once the groomed gravel trail ran out, it was all mud from there to the ruins.  Inside the ruins (Old stone building that's just a shell - the course runs through it), it was all ankle-deep puddles, but as I was already soaked after the warmup run, I plowed through everything from the start of the race anyway.  Back on the beach, it was a half mile to the finish.  I came in 1 second faster than my time from last year, but I felt better, faster, and that the course ran tougher this year because of the water and mud on the course.  Tough to compare trail races year to year, it's not the same as road running at all.  I ended up at 24:47, 7:57 pace and 51st of 133 runners?  Great time.

After a cooldown with some of the guys, the awards were presented, and WTAC took the team win for the second time!  Our guys took spots 1, 3, 5,6,7,8, and 9, and a number of other places, as we had over 20 WTAC crew there for the race!  Team win = free beer, which is also pretty sweet!  Big congrats to Ryan for the win, Turtle dude Bob Jackman for second, FiveK for third, and the rest of our fast crew in what was a pretty fast race...trail/beach race with the top 15 all sub-7 average?  I'd say that's pretty good...

Totally fun day!  And no races for three weeks means more free runs, maybe some surfing, and more exploring and working on getting faster :)

Monahan's Dock going off...barrelfest

40's, also going off...