Recent Stuff

     On Sunday I set out from camp in East Burke to run the same nice ten mile loop of dirt road and trail that Kevin and I had mountain biked a few weeks earlier. Running from camp always involves a steep downhill mile to start and a steep uphill mile to finish. In between those beginning and ending miles, there is nothing but more hills. This is tough stuff, and awesome training for Vermont 100. At the height of land, I could look across from the ridge I was running and see our neighbor's house near the top of our little mountain. In all directions there was field, forest, and mountain. What a beautiful part of the country Northeast Vermont is. The ten miles really flew by, despite my burning quads. I ended the trail portion down the beautiful winding single track of Moose Alley. This, unfortunately, was followed by a two mile climb on hard packed dirt road followed by that one mile of STEEP uphill I mentioned earlier. I ended up having to walk two brief stretches on the final climb, but I was pretty pleased that was all the walking I had to do. This run gave me a good butt kicking. But that was only part one of Sunday's fun.
     Part two was a mountain bike ride on the single track on Darling Hill. When we got out of the truck at Mountain View Farm at the top of Darling Hill, we realized how windy and cold it really was. I layered up with two fleeces over my long sleeved jersey, but that still didn't feel like enough. I threw fashion to the wind and put my winter coat on over those other layers. Half way down Pound Cake two guys passed me on their bikes. The second guy looked at me and chuckled and shook his head. I warmed up by the end of the first trail and stowed my wadded up jacket in Kevin's Camel back. OK, maybe I was more embarrassed than warm, but I went without the jacket for the rest of the ride. We covered a lot of ground and rode a lot of hills. I work a lot harder than Kevin does on the technical stuff. Where he lifts and lightens the bike, I power over things with pure grit. It takes a lot out of me!
     Monday and Tuesday were easy runs on the Ossipee River Trails with Scout. Monday, my legs felt like cement blocks. Tuesday I felt light and fast! I was happy to only have one feel-like-crap day after my hard effort Sunday.
     I will be running some, or all of the Big A 50K on Saturday. I haven't built my long runs up to that kind of distance yet, but if I run easy enough I can probably finish. Either way, it will be a fun long run with friends.