Pisgah 50k

Laramie kicked off a few weekends of racing, which is the good stuff as far as I'm concerned. Upon coming home, we had the Louisa May Alcott 5k with my junior skiers, and I jumped into the 10k, in light of my upcoming marathon. I had some diaphragm cramping problems, and sort of had to cruise my way through it, but it was definitely still fun to pin on a bib!


Managed to win my age class, by virtue of having not too many other people racing the 10k in my age class. But that meant I got to pose with Uta Pippig! 

That afternoon I headed up to Pawtuckaway, for UNO's famed camping weekend. I skipped all the daytime orienteering, but arrived in time for the potluck dinner and the Wicked Hahd Night-O. I was going back and forth with Ernst and Neil for most of it, but didn't really have the energy or ability to run away from them, and ended up in 2nd place behind Neil. Super fun!

Because two races in one day wasn't enough, I was set to run the blue course the next morning (the longest hardest one). But, enough other people around me at breakfast were running the next one down that I decided to follow the herd. The fatigue from a pretty heavy training load in Laramie, combined with the altitude and a tough week at work, meant that I was hardly upset about this decision! I had a relatively clean run, with the one exception being that I lost a trail I was trying to follow on my way to control #11. I didn't notice this for too long, and corrected poorly, dropping about two minutes. But my slow and plodding pace still netted me third overall, and ahead of all the ladies (though not by much). I'll take it! Results.

So fun to see so many kids getting ready for the vampire-o after dinner! 

The WHNO course with my track on top. Click for larger. You can see where I totally decked myself on the way to 15, because the track goes to that bright red you-were-stopped-here color. 

Sundays' course with my route. Pretty proud of how straight I went from 7-8! 

After Sunday's course, Ed had managed to show up with his new vehicle, and we went for a nice trail run on the windy singletrack. That is a much more fun trail when you aren't trying to use it to navigate! We'd offered to pick up a couple controls, since we were out there late, and as I collected controls, Ed collected a much better treasure - fresh chanterelles!

How he spends most of his time when it comes to the bus



Actually driving places now! 

Pisgah Mountain 50k
Anyway, you came here to read about the Pisgah 50k, not my wanderings around Pawtuckaway. I'd sort of been targeting this race, partly as a lead-up to a marathon in a few weeks, but partly because I haven't run it since 2013, and I wanted to run it again and successfully. The really difficult thing is that I knew I had to let go of 2013-version-Alex, because I know I am not that fast anymore. I wish I were; from the numbers you'd think I could match past efforts, but I think a large part of this is that my mindset has changed, and I'm less willing to lay it all out there in pursuit of a result. I had re-read my report from 2013, and the memory of how hard I'd been pushing, to keep up with Kelsey and then to hold her off, was pretty fresh. I didn't know that I wanted to do that again.

So, my goal for the day was to enjoy it - I usually run well when I'm smiling. I had 50 kilometers ahead of me, of this beautiful, piney, forested trails, and I had no obligations today besides putting one foot in front of the other to cover distance. So much fun! I really was looking forward to this. Unfortunately, the weather looked to be pretty awful - humid, and warming up to the mid-eighties by midday. With an 8:45am start, I knew I'd have quite a few hours of running in uncomfortable temperatures. Ugh. As I feared, the hot weather dictated much of the race for me.

Starting in a cloud. 97% humidity.

We started in a cloud, and I noticed that my heart rate wanted to climb too easily. I tried to take it easy and just chat with people in the beginning, and it was a really enjoyable first eight miles. Somewhere along the way I came to Emily and Tom, NENSA folks, and they were stopped, Tom having smashed his knee crossing a slippery brook. He insisted he could walk just fine, so I kept going, pretty sure Emily would come flying by soon. I got to the aid station about a minute faster than my last time, which was worrisome because of the humidity (was I working too hard?!), but encouraging that the marathon training of raising my baseline speed has been working.

I walked up the road climb from there with a group of three guys, and then things started to get tough as we kept going up on the trails. Emily passed me by, and I didn't even try to match her pace, feeling gassed and too out-of-breath. I ran the downhill well, catching back up to my three guys, and ran through the aid station at the bottom, passing Emily in the process, though she soon passed me right back.

I topped up on water at the water stop around 12mi, and then forced myself to do a bunch of jogging over the next few miles to the third aid station, on the lookout for bees the whole time. Didn't want to get stung again! I was still pushing the downhills pretty hard, but taking it easier on the uphills. Somewhere in here I had my first heat shivers, not a good sign. I arrived at the third aid station and got more heat shivers, so decided to back way off and just walk all the way up Pisgah mountain.

Of the three guys I'd been running with miles 8-16ish, the gray-shirt guy ran off strongly from the aid, and I never saw him again. Black-shirt guy passed me early up the climb, but blue-shirt guy, named Joe, caught me more slowly and we chatted a bit. I kept walking, trying to bring my HR down. My right foot, which has a touch of plantar fasciitis, was really starting to hurt in here. Coming down the hill, I had to focus on running, full stride and whatnot, because I just wanted to go slowly and limp on my foot. It's hard to change gears to a higher one, but it has to be done! I caught both black-shirt and Joe coming down the hill, but I wasn't feeling awesome. It was hot, I ran out of water near the top of Pisgah mountain and thus had a mile or two of dry running, and my stomach was starting to complain about this effort in this heat.

The fourth aid station is the start and the finish of the Kilburn loop. As I topped up water, guzzling quite a bit of it, the leading woman came in, having just finished the loop. She was also leading the race. Impressive! I waddled off toward the loop as she loped off down the trail and toward the finish, and I was feeling kind of negative. My foot was really unhappy with the gravel part of the trail, my quads and hamstrings were feeling the strain of running the downhills hard, and my stomach didn't like all the water I'd just guzzled. I made a concerted effort to keep sending it down the hills but I was definitely entering survival mode, and I did a bunch more walking than I should have back up the hill.

I finally got back to the aid station, and now the shortest way back to the finish was to just follow the course. Phew. I tried hard not to limp on my foot, because I didn't want to cause some other injury from running funny, and I passed a dude who was walking, which made me realize I wasn't actually that badly off. Into the climbs up Davis hill I did some pace counting to motivate myself to keep running, and near the top I heard footsteps behind me - Joe! We shared a few miles, walking the uphills and trying not to limp the downhills, and then when we hit the gravel road I told him he better run ahead - I was going to do some walking and my stomach was really unhappy.

About 0.7mi from the end, I passed the tailgating crew, and they told me I was third woman. I chuckled, and asked if they had any cold beer. I was promptly delivered an ice cold, delicious, bubbly, IPA, and it was heavenly. Finally something that I wanted to ingest! I drank about 3/4 of it before dropping it off at the next driveway (as suggested by the tailgaters), turning and giving them a thumbs up, to a rousing cheer. Started jogging again and managed to get across the line about a minute before 4th place, so it's good I didn't take the time to finish that beer.

So, while the race wasn't everything I'd hoped, I did manage to enjoy myself out there. I know I don't run particularly well in humidity and heat, so I sort of expected my stomach to turn at some point, but that was a tough one to finish. I don't like that it was 41 minutes slower than last time, so I guess I'll have to come back next year!

Super thanks to the race director and all the volunteers - the course was lovely, very well marked, and the aid stations were friendly and stocked with all sorts of good food. Great event!

Boston Sprint Camp and a skier adventure weekend

Ed and I pulled off the fourth year of Boston Sprint Camps two weekends ago. This is a fun event, usually very personal and interactive thanks to the small number of runners. Like the past few years, we had a little over 30 people, and the weather and vibes were great. We used three new orienteering maps - Cutler Park, Millennium Park, and Jamaica Pond - always fun to run on new places! Cutler was a double edged sword. It's a long walk, about a mile, to get down to the good terrain. But then, given the unproductive glacial geology going on down there, the forest is superb. People really enjoyed the course we did down there, despite the walk.

Sprint Camp started unofficially with the Thursday night park race at Moakley Park, in Boston. This was our final park race of the season, and most of CSU hung out afterward to have a potluck. Brendan from Inov-8 stopped by with a demo fleet of shoes, much to the enjoyment of the runners. We had a couple out-of-towners joining us for the Thursday race, and that was a nice ending of the season.


Inov-8 demos at our last park run at Moakley!


Sara Mae setting up the potluck


Race day shopping. Should have gotten fewer bananas and more m&ms.

Sprint Camp started officially on Friday with a day in Cambridge, doing a bunch of training exercises at Danehy Park before moving to Fresh Pond for the evening race. I only put one control in the middle of a patch of poison ivy... oops. Next time, I'll leave that one out. Lunch from Anna's Tacqueria, always delicious.

Saturday was out in the Newtons, starting with a "peg relay" in Nahanton Park. Mass start, but some controls have pieces of surveyor's tape looped on. If you get there and there is still a tape, you take it and run a "bonus loop," which serves the purpose of constantly consolidating the pack, making for lots of head-to-head racing. So much fun!


Izzy in to the first peg control


Keegan leading the whole race, taking a streamer to go run some bonus controls


Izzy leading Bridget, Kristin, and Marie


Tori leading a pack in to the first "peg" control


How to exit a trail: no hesitations!

From there we headed down to Millennium Park, for some more training exercises and then an e-punched park race. Ed made me take out any legs that went straight up the hill, and that was a good move. We ate lunch from BrickFire pizza there, and everyone was pretty hungry by then.

The final race was down at Cutler, on the new map in the gorgeous woods. Despite the mosquitoes, I think everyone really enjoyed that race. We quickly hauled in controls, and then went home to prep for Sunday's bracket race.



Route choice - Tomas took the trail, Pam cut through the woods.

On Sunday, the Bermans stopped by to help us organize things. We were based in one location, but runners did six races in total, and each one had a different start and finish. We all marched out to the southernmost area together, and they ran the qualification race there. From the results of that, I slotted all the runners into eight heats of four, and they ran the first of five elimination heats. There's a big complicated bracket to explain it all, and we fell down by not having this thing printed out ahead of time. Next year. I think we actually managed to stick to the bracket and not screw anything up, which was a minor miracle considering I was basically sitting there with a pencil and a clipboard trying to interpret the basic results from the mini screen we were using in the field. Phew.


Huddling in the shade before the start of the qualification


Heat #2 under way!


One of the master heats starting out


Junior heat starting off. Read the map, THEN run


Ed manning download, in the field

Five heats later, everyone ran the final sprint, now in heats most closely matched, and it looked like a ton of fun. Everyone loves head-to-head racing, and boy did I wish I could jump in. I'll have to go back to the Seattle Adventure Running Tournament!

Lunch from the Noodle Barn, award pies, and then it was over. Quite the whirlwind, but thank god for such great hanging-around weather.

Adventure Weekend
Last weekend was the first CSU adventure weekend. We center this one around the Greylock mountain race, which I've raced the last few years. Unfortunately this year, I'm still recovering from my injury this spring, and didn't want to jump into the race, knowing that I have a hard time holding back when I'm wearing a bib. So the usual thing of "beat Alex's time and I'll buy your ice cream" had to get shifted to beating last year's time, which was a pretty soft one to beat.


One of THOSE days. Great pavement, perfect day to ski


I love these old roads up in the Berkshires. Maple trees lining the view of fields and forests, hills for days. 


The boys cruising past my favorite field of wildflowers


Sending it off a cliff in Adams


The crew up on Pine Cobble. Seven athletes, two grownups. Make that nine athletes, seven of them in highschool. 


Tunnel of green, line of runners.


Calm morning on what ended up being a hot day. Kind of glad I wasn't racing.


Love this

Despite lots of fun on Saturday, including a very hilly rollerski and a bonus hike up Pine Cobble, five skiers braved the start line, ready for the longest race of their lives so far. They all made it around, some with smiles, some with blisters, all agreeing that it was the best sort of Type II fun they've ever had, with at least one kid admitting to having a lot of Type I fun, too. Two boys earned free ice cream, and everyone felt very proud of themselves. Good stuff!



Looking forward to a weekend at home, now...

Mt. Toby Trail Race

The final Grand Tree race that would fit into my schedule was the Mt. Toby Trail Race. I've never done this one, and despite spending two years staying with Peter and Gail at the edge of the forest, I've only run on those trails twice. From what I'd heard about the race, I wasn't that excited, because it sounded like a hillclimb on wide trails with good footing, and the hillclimb wasn't quite steep enough to warrant hiking. My strengths are short and steep ups and downs with very technical footing, sort of like 7 Sisters. But a race is a race, and the weather looked gorgeous, so I was excited to pin on a bib.



I ran into a couple people I knew beforehand, but didn't know how we'd all stack up. My time goal was to be around 2 hours, maybe under, just based on looking at Kelsey's time from previous years. I could probably be 15 minutes behind Kelsey on a hillclimb, right? More importantly, that's where my typical Grand Tree points would place me if I had a typical race. I had no intention of any heroics today, I was tired, and despite getting in some decent cross training in the last month or two, I haven't done much running to support going fast. This might just be a sufferfest.

The course started with about a half mile of pavement, then into the woods on a jeep road to climb very gradually uphill for 4 miles. Short downhill, then more flat before the final climb to the top of Mt. Toby, also on a jeep road. The footing was generally good, with no leaves down. I found myself jogging along with quite a few other people, and I let myself just settle in. I was maybe fourth woman, with a few others in site, who all looked skinny and fast. I, on the other hand, felt jiggly and slow. I realized that this would be one of those mental-battle sort of days, where you try to get the positive supportive voice in your head to drown out the mean negative voice. Because that nasty negative voice never makes you run faster.

After about a mile I started to turn the screws, just a little, and I reeled in one of the women ahead of me and made contact with the other two. I moved in front on the short downhill at mile 4, but on the flats thereafter they had no problem catching back up. The fact that I haven't been on a track since July was increasingly obvious to me - this race course was a fast one, and my legs haven't moved this fast in months! We finally started climbing, and it was clear that the lady in the pink shirt, Beth, was the better climber. She slowly pulled away, and I turned my positive self-talk up to 11.

Hill climbing is so silly, everyone is just crawling up this hill, barely making any moves on each other, oblivious to most of the world as you just try to get the oxygen into the legs and keep the forward movement. Part way up, I realized that my left foot was falling asleep - I'd done it again and tied my shoe to tight (I should mention that I keep doing this because I HATE loose shoes). This time, I decided that I would learn from past mistakes (see 2017 7 Sisters...), and I stopped to untie and loosen it. That took maybe 30 seconds, but seemed worth it. Eventually the top guys came flying down, and I knew I was nearing the top. I took a split on Beth as she came down, then up to the fire tower, touch the pole, scarf a gel, and the good part starts!

Thanks to Ben Kimball at Northeast Race Photo for the shot of me doing two things I'm good at - eating and running downhill! I went with the Roclite305 Inov-8s, today, for a little more cushion on the downhills and not needing the traction, and they were a good choice. 

Beth was about 4 minutes up on me at the top. With such good footing on the descent, I knew I'd be hard-pressed to catch her, especially as it seemed she wasn't a terrible descender. By the bottom of the big hill, I could see her back, but it was still a minute or two difference between us. I was in hunt mode, but I was also really starting to hurt. 14 miles of fast running is something I could have eaten up in July, but now, I'm more ready for rollerskiing than anything fast. Oof. My hamstrings and butt were starting to complain, and my breath was getting more ragged as I pushed up the short hills before the final flats.


I was nearly ready to give up. All the streamers marking the course were pink, so every time I'd look up I'd see a pink movement, thinking it was Beth's shirt, only to realize it was survey tape. My brain couldn't take the continuous bashing of hope, and the positive voice trailed off. I knew that it was a case of beer on the line, and I really wanted to win that beer, but the nasty little negative voice started to pipe up. Maybe if you drank less beer, you would have gone faster up the hill. You're not a good runner, you're not fit, why are you even out here? The negative gremlins in my head were winning, and my desire to suffer was waning.

Luckily, the positive voices noticed the attack, and took back over. I kicked it back into gear, and kept hunting. Some of the guys who'd been ahead of me on the climb were coming into view. My hamstrings were distinctly unhappy with the pace, but I couldn't let up. Beth's shirt popped into view on an uphill, and I knew I was still in it. If I could make contact while still in the woods, I may be able to get enough of a gap to hold her off on the final climb to the finish. I kept striving, and then I made contact - just as we hit the pavement. Worst nightmare, because now it's just going to hurt the whole way in.

I tumbled down the hill a little faster, but I was completely gassed, barely keeping my feet under me on the downhill. We started back up the hill and I stayed focused on the process, just drive the elbows, strong feet. At least make her work for it! Beth easily closed the gap, and pulled ahead. We turned the corner, and I could see the finish, and I tried to kick, but there was no response. Swimming in lactic acid, my brain had been willing me along for too long, and was as out of oomph as my legs.

Second place is fine, and I cruised under 2 hours with 1:56. But, I can't help but feel disappointed, and that I lost the race. It was a lot of fun to battle and chase, though! Next time, let's do it on a course with some rocks :)

UNO Boulder Dash

Up North Orienteering Club hosted a National Event last weekend: The Boulder Dash. It was on the Burnt Mountain map that we used last year for the North American Orienteering Championships, and this year I got to run on a 1:10,000 scale map instead of 1:15. That made a big difference, because suddenly I could ready the map! Turns out, reading maps is an important part of this sport. 

Ed and I arrived Friday afternoon, for the US Team fundraiser sprint. This was a low-key affair, just a chance to go out into the woods and find some controls, and I struggled with map interpretation. Not good. I went back out for a walk, just reading every feature, trying to make some sense of the contours. There are a lot of little wiggles and wobbles in the contours, so the trick was definitely to take in the bigger picture, to have an idea of what you were looking at. So much rock on the map, that you sort of just had to look beyond it. 

Can't beat the excitement of finding a control in the woods where you expect it! 

Saturday rolled around and I had a nice morning with Sharon, who lives at the edge of the map and graciously hosted us. Then it was off to the races. I knew that this map demands respect, so my plan was to start slowly, and always have a good plan. My main competition was Violeta, the Spanish Team runner living with Barb right now, but I was confident that I could take her on if I could run cleanly. I was in the huntress position today, starting 6 minutes back. 

The race felt unremarkable. I was trundling about slowly, never feeling like I could push the pace, because then I wouldn't be able to read the map and simplify away all the detail. but I was finding controls, one after the other, exactly where I expected them. This feeling is such a rush! I love this sport on days like that! 

Approaching control 7, I saw a flash of yellow up the hill from me - Violeta's jersey! She was clearly still in search-mode, so I snuck up to the control and then blasted away down the hill to 8, hoping she hadn't seen me. Definitely a confidence boost to know you've picked up six minutes on a competitor! She caught me on the hill up to #9, where I was sucking wind and she was blithely bounding away. I tried to maintain contact up the next hill to 10, but simply didn't have the legs. Luckily, this was followed with a trail descent, so I had nearly made contact by 11. We stayed separated by maybe 20 seconds for the rest of the course, neither able to make up ground or out-navigate the other, but in my chase I managed to have the second-fastest finish split among everyone on that course (including the M-20s, a tough group to beat in finish splits), and nearly won the course outright - my companion from the Highlander, Joe, bested me by 10 seconds. So close!

En route to crushing a finish split. I guess that means I could have tried harder during the rest of the race...

The second day of racing is always difficult. The overall winner is the one who is fastest with a combined time from two days, so could I hold off Violeta by 5:30 minutes? I was feeling fairly confident, but given her hill-climbing prowess, I knew that if the course were faster, or if she avoided making a 7-minute error, I'd be in trouble. Pressure!

I was starting first this time. My approach was the same as yesterday: Calm, smooth, and steady. But approaching #2, on the trails, I made a big mistake, overrunning a trail junction for a minute and a half before spidey sense tingled. Arrrrgh. I tried to put the mistake out of my mind, and carried on with the course. I was starting to get into the flow of things, and then there was another long leg to #5, which I again elected to do on trails. Things were going great, until right at the end, when I made a parallel error, thinking I was at the correct little reentrant with a cliff next to an open nose right off the trail, when I was at an identical feature nearby. Five minutes gone, like that.  Now I really was running scared, pressure totally on. I thought I was better than eight minutes of mistakes! 

Following a beagle to the end will always make me happy.

I got back into the game after that, but I wasn't feeling very good about the run. I couldn't stick around to see how Violeta (or Izzy, who hadn't been very far behind on the first day) were going to run. In my infinite wisdom, I was running two races in one day, heading down to Groton for my fifth Grand Tree race. I want to run six this year, and after missing most of the summer thanks to knee-bashing-marathon-not-training, I need two more. So, I abandoned Ed at the event, and got to the start of the trail race with about 20 minutes to spare. Perfect! 

Probably the less said about that race the better. The course was very pretty, a single 9-mi loop through golden leaves and winding trails, with minimal elevation gain. What elevation there was to gain came in the form of short, steep, glacial hills, which were perfect for my tired legs, because I could justify hiking. I found myself in third place after a few miles, and managed to stay there, trailing the woman in 2nd for most of the remaining miles, but never able to close the gap. Not much spark, but a beautiful day for an up-tempo run in the woods, and I won a bottle of home-made wine for my efforts! (it's the thought that counts... I've had better)

Upon getting back to my car, I checked my phone for results, and found that not only had I hung on to first overall, I beat Violeta on day 2, too! She had had a rough time out there, unused to the map or the terrain, but I was mostly just happy to win the overall weekend! I haven't won a National Event in a very long time, so this was pretty exciting for me. Nice confidence boost before the classic distance championships in November! 

I won a box of rocks! Chocolate rocks

Some photos below from the weekend before, at a training camp in VT with my juniors. We had a mix of weather, but some very nice workouts, and Ed was cooking for us, so we had some good food too. Hashtag happy place?


Can't beat days like that for a long rollerski

Secret training

Gorgeous view from the Jericho biathlon range, where the kids raced on rollerskis

Definitely the most important part of any camp is eating.