Pemi loop

This hike has been on my bucket list for a while, so when Ari mentioned that he wanted to run the Pemi loop this fall, I thought it might fit perfectly in with my marathon training. Kind of. At least if you look at it all squinty or something. I mean, hiking over 10,000ft of climb is totally good prep for rolling out 8-minute miles endlessly, right? Well, at the very least, this promised to fill my soul with mountain views and rocks and leaves and things, and I was all in.

Unfortunately my body didn't totally agree with this all-in attitude. My right foot hadn't quite recovered from Pisgah, and throwing another 50k at it, this time with hills, was not kind. But I started the day hoping for the best, because that's what I do.

We went debated the merits of clockwise vs counterclockwise in the car, and ultimately settled on clockwise, mostly because that was how Ari has always done it in the past, and it means you reach Galehead Hut after having already done the bulk of the climbing and rough trail. Gabriel and I were up for whatever, having never done this loop before and happy to rely on someone else's expertise.

We jogged off toward the Osseo trail with high spirits. Up the trail to Flume Ari and Gabriel quickly dropped me, and I discovered that my legs were definitely feeling the heavy training load from last week. I made the conscious decision to back off a little, because life is a lot more fun when you're not suffering, and gosh was it a beautiful day for putting one foot in front of the other! The boys didn't have to wait for *too* long at the top, and the ridge between Flume and Liberty was great. We jogged along happily, but once we hit Little Haystack, we started running into the crowds on the Franconia Ridge. I don't blame them, because that is the most amazing accessible trail that I can think of, but we passed maybe 100-150 people between Little Haystack and Lafayette, in both directions. The whole ridge was in a cloud, which took away any sense of distance, but it was nice to not get totally fried by the sun.

Looking east from Flume. One of those days!

South from Flume.

Hey we're going to go into that cloud! 

I had to do handstands on top of Lafayette, because tradition, and then we left the crowds behind as we traipsed off toward Garfield. I had been feeling pretty good along the ridge, but various injuries were starting to niggle as we descended from the ridge, and I knew I'd be in for a long day. Normally I can dance down the hills, but not this day. I tried to put the pain out of my mind, because with some overuse injuries you have the luxury of knowing that you're probably not doing longterm damage, and you can just push through. But, I was certainly feeling pretty battered by the time we'd gone up and down Garfield and the following lumpy bits of trail. Galehead was a welcome site!

One of my old skiers, Hannah, is working at Galehead this season, but unfortunately was out packing food for the hut last Saturday, so our paths didn't cross. But, she left me a plate full of bread and cookies, and a cardboard Pemi Loop Queen crown, which I tried to wear for the rest of the loop. Unfortunately, cardboard isn't a great material for durability when you're wearing it on your sweaty head, but I loved the thought of it!

Looking down into the Pemigewasset wilderness from Garfield

A bowl of soup at the hut, and then we headed off for our last real climb of the day, up South Twin. It's tough to get moving again after sitting down, but you don't really have a choice. Unfortunately by the top of this one, my plantar fascia foot was starting to really hurt, and the subsequent ridge, which should have been awesome running, was just sort of a painful slog, trying to match pace with the boys, and not being too successful at it. I'd never been up to Mt. Bond before, and it was gorgeous. Beautiful views of the Franconia ridge to one side and the Presidentials to the other, nothing steep or difficult to traverse, just lots of nice trail. Bondcliff was as cool as everyone has always said it is; I'd like to go do that again and have a picnic up there.

My Pemi Loop Queen crown on top of South Twin

Ari and Gabriel heading up Mt. Bond

The boys on top of Bondcliff

Thus some 22-something miles into the day, we finally started downhill, and my foot was pretty upset at being asked to bear weight. We still made it down reasonably quickly, but then those final five miles of flat old railroad by the river... those were rough. I couldn't put power through either foot, and resorted to sort of hillbounding with my poles, at a struggle shuffle 13-minute mile. Oof. Takes a long time to cover flat ground when you're going that slowly, but Ari was a good friend and hung back to tell me stories. Gabriel couldn't stand the idea of that final piece of trail taking so long, and ran ahead. I can't blame him, and wished I'd been able to manage a more respectable pace, but sometimes you just gotta run what you brung.

The eponymous river

So after a very long slog, we were back to the car, some 10.5 hours after starting. 30 miles and 10,000ft of climb is a big day, no matter who you are. What a crazy awesome day. Of course I wished I could have gone faster, because that's who I am, but for now I am very satisfied having just made it around. While that may qualify as a bucket list item, I'm not writing off doing it again, on fresher legs!

Soapstone Mountain Trail Race

I hadn't run this one before, but Ed did it last year and wanted to go again. Sure, long run can be a trail race, why not? And actually, this one was pretty runnable, so that fit the bill nicely. And you can't go that wrong with a Grand Tree race. I took a look at the Ultrasignup predictions and some past results, and decided that I'd be pleased with a 2:10, but aiming for closer to 2:05. That would be averaging a little over 9min/mi, so knowing that number would give my brain something to crunch while running.

The race started down a gradual dirt road, so the first mile basically felt free. It was fun to cruise down that road in a tight little pack, just letting the ground roll away behind us. Then we turned onto some flattish/rolling singletrack back up toward the main paved road, and it was so pretty. We've had such a late spring, all the leaves were still in that light green/golden glow, with some stuff still flowering. What a day for a run! At the main road, we crossed and headed up Soapstone Mountain. Rutted and washed out and dirt, but not mud, which would have been tough at that incline. At this point I was sitting as second woman, with Kehr out of sight but no real challenges from behind. I'd built an ~3min buffer on my goal time over the first two miles, which disappeared quickly hiking up Soapstone. Breakneck tumble down the other side (wheeee!), and then some flatter/rolling trail. It was a fun trail, definitely runnable and fast but technical enough to keep me happy.

Thanks to Shenipsit Striders for the photo. Downhills go "wheee!"

Given the cool temperatures and aid stations every ~3mi, I had elected to not run with a water bottle. You'd think I learn from my mistakes, but I repeatedly prove that I'm too stupid for that. Not running with a bottle means you have to spend much more time at the aid stations, and then you run off with a belly sloshing full of water. D'oh. Future self, please don't do this again. So, I was definitely losing more time at the aid stations than was ideal, around 30-45 seconds of drinking.

Somewhere after the first aid station, the trail took a sharp bend left off a cliff, and I was coming down a hill approaching that junction, thus going fast enough that my eyes were watering a bit and I was really focused on my footing. I saw a yellow blaze on a tree and race-brain thought that was good enough, even though I was supposed to be looking for white blazes or yellow flags in the ground. Rain-brain really isn't very smart. Whoops. That cost me a bonus hill and ~1.5 minutes, along with a good number of the damns I'd brought to give along the way.

The next few miles were flat/rolling and gradually trending downward, and I tried to pick people off but they weren't coming back to me very fast. It was sort of nice to have my watch beep every mile, and I was only a little behind my desired pace, but with my little bonus tour I didn't know how much extra distance I'd done. The downhill culminated in a stream/trail, over loose rocks, and my busted/abused ankle really did not like that part, so I ceded even more time.

On the gradual rollers back up toward Soapstone Mt, I put out an honest effort, but I was tired. Definitely riding the edge of that pace where most of your thoughts are concerned with stopping, or maybe hammocks and beer and a nice breeze. The trail was rocky enough that when I lost focus I'd slow way down, so I tried to stay focused on moving forward efficiently. Anyway, my efforts yielded me two dudes, but no ladies, and it was a real relief to start the climb back up to Soapstone, since that meant I was almost done. The descent was hard on my ankle, which was complaining about all the micro twists from the river running, and I backed off a little in the name of self-preservation.

The final 3/4mi was painful, and felt like it took forever. I passed two ladies with a dog, and one reprimanded her dog "don't interfere, dog, this lady's having a hard time," which made me chuckle, and she immediately tried to justify "but a hard time in a good way!" I guess I didn't look like I was having a good time at that point. Eventually I lumbered across the line, 4th woman, about a minute slower than I'd hoped, and not feeling particularly positive about my shape. But that was a fun course, and had a nice race vibe.

This lady's having a hard time. Shenipsit Strider's photo.

Results

Mt. Greylock trail race

Last weekend, I took some junior skiers out west, to do some rollerskiing with their buddies on the Mt. Greylock team, and then to do the Mt. Greylock mountain race. It's a tough race for a teenager, but I think it's good for the kids to challenge themselves occasionally, and this was indeed a challenge. I did this one last year, and it was a pretty great test of who is the best all-around mountain runner. Sustained climbs, runnable downhills, a smattering of rocks and mud; it's a great course, even if I prefer the courses with less runnability. I think it's great to do races that don't only suit your strengths, but sometimes that can be depressing. My main goal for the day was to beat last year's time; it was supposed to rain a lot, but last year was pretty wet up top, too, so I figured conditions would be similar.  It was 20 degrees warmer this year, which was too bad, but I never felt like the heat was a true limiting factor. My secondary goal was to make sure none of my girls beat me.

We started out, up the hill, and my focus was on keeping my effort semi-comfortable. I remembered having very sore glutes and hamstrings last year, and though I hadn't gone quite as hard this year at the Friday core strength session with my juniors, I was still a little achy from my plyometrics I'd done earlier in the week. Damn. I found it was definitely easier to keep running, well, jogging, than to hike, because hiking took much more strength. One way to keep from hiking too much was to make sure I sped up any time I was hiking, and that made it enough of an extra effort that I couldn't wait to switch back to running, to recover!

I stayed closer to Debbie this year up the hill, and the effort felt less cumbersome than last year, so I was patting myself on the back for a job well done, until I saw the split at the top, two minutes slower. Oh. It was a little depressing, but I told myself that whatever happens, I still need to do a long run with a lot of hills today, and this race fit that bill.  My motivation was low, but the first rocky descent was fun enough to put a real smile on my face. The X-Talons were great, even in the rain, and I pulled back a lot of places, though no women.

On the few uphills after that descent I discovered I'd really only brought my descending legs today. Oh, well, run what you brung. I caught a glimpse of Debbie's back as I got to the second feed station, so pushed the pace a bit on the piece of singletrack before Jones Nose, and just like last year, caught up to Debbie right about there.  We zipped down the hills, which is just lovely and runnable and fun, and Ben was at the bottom taking photos, I couldn't help it, and leapt into the air giggling. Another one of those photos that I just had to buy - thanks Ben!

Then began the un-fun part, just a slog up a fire road with loose rock underfoot and tons of water on the trail, and I was very thankful to be sharing those miles with Debbie, chatting about anything. I wasn't having much fun, but the miles went by relatively quickly, and soon we were careening down the hill, much to the chagrin of my sore hamstrings. Having a buddy had put a small bandaid on my broken give-a-damn, but I couldn't bring myself to push hard, and deliberately stopped for water with a mile to go, because I just didn't want to have to sprint to the finish. I only ended up about 15 seconds back, but the rope tow was broken, and I had no energy to repair it. I lost about 4 minutes to last year on that final section of fire road, so didn't beat my time. Second year in a row for 4th place, so maybe NEXT year I'll show up rested!