Nahant 30k

Yes, my 'training' is probably unconventional. I'll be the first to admit it. Most people probably don't combine their high mileage weeks (training for 2 fall marathons) with back to back weekends of 18+ mile races plus an upcoming 24hr 200 mile relay this weekend (RTB).Who the heck has time to taper anyways?? So with already tired legs, I made a last minute decision on Sunday to head down to Nahunt, MA and run the Nahant 30k Road Race and hopefully work on my marathon pacing. First I had to figure out where the heck Nahant was.

I knew it was on the coast so I assumed it would be fairly flat, making it ideal to run a consistent pace throughout the six 5k's (sounds longer that way), or 18.64 miles (that sounds pretty long too). Nahant is the closest thing there is to an island without it being called an island, and is landlocked by Lynn (city of sin) of all places. Who knew? What I did know was there would be LOTS of turns. How else do you pack in 30k of running on a land mass of 1.2 sq miles?

Lots of familiar (and fast) faces at the start, including the entire GCS men's masters team that will most likely be kicking my butt at Baystate next month but I digress. Jim Pawlicki gave me a quick overview of what to expect (aka it is not flat and you will turn a LOT) shortly before the race and the RD gave a quick overview as well. 15 miles on Nahant and a long run along the beach down and past the start/finish area (on the causeway) before looping back at mile 18. Got it?
 I had heard this race can be a bit confusing if volunteers and signage are not in place. After being assured by the RD that the course was well marked, we were off.
Now I should mention I didn't do any warm up (pretty typical for me) so I went out easy and relaxed hoping to run close to my planned marathon pace (6:40 pace). Good news is my 1st mile was 6:37. Bad news was I had to stop for a bathroom break (yes I know, poor planning on my part). Thankfully there was a bath house right at the 1st mile mark. I still lost about a minute (2nd mile was 7:34) but I didn't panic and didn't try to get it all back in the early miles. I just kept telling myself to be patient and take your time. I did lose about 30 places though and that was frustrating but it gave me lots of targets to track down.
It turns out Nahant is not flat after all. The course can be described with four words: up, down, turn, repeat. In fact the only flat section was the start/finish area along the causeway. The rest of the route was constant rollers (which I actually enjoyed). I've never turned so many times in a race....ever. Run a 100ft, sharp left, run a 100ft, sharp right. Wow. And for the record I was curious how many turns there actually were. The North Shore Striders have turn by turn directions of the course on their website. Count them up: 77 turns. Yikes.

Back to the race. I was feeling great in the early miles. Very relaxed, strong and running fairly easy and totally happy with my pace. After 9 miles I was right at MP (6:41 avg) and continued to catch and pass runners. But there were a few runners I was with in the first mile that were still a ways ahead of me and I was determined to catch them before we finished. Around mile 10 I started to pick up the pace and really focused on tracking down these rogue runners. It was fun, especially watching them glance back on the turns, each time me being a little closer. Bwah ha ha! They were running scared and there's nothing they can do about it. They shall be caught and passed. You can write that in pen.
By the time we reached Nahant beach for the last 3 miles along the causeway I had reeled them all in. Now I had to hold them off. I never looked back but instead just ran harder. It's a tough finish since you run right by the finish line around mile 17, running directly into the wind until finally making a u-turn around mile 18 and heading back to the finish (this time with a tail wind).I finally got a glimpse of where everyone was when I made the u-turn and started heading back. I felt like I had a comfortable lead but didn't slow up at all (running 5:38 pace over the last .64 miles). I cruised in with a time of 2:00:45, 10th place overall (complete results). My legs felt great! For a brief second I thought about the time I lost during my bathroom break and whether I could have broken 2hrs but I got over it pretty quick. I probably would have run the race quite differently if I hadn't stopped. Heck, it was a 30k PR! Ok, so it was my first 30k, whatever.
The best part was running some very nice negative splits. I averaged 6:41's for the first 9 miles and 6:17's for the last 9.6. For the nerdy folks, all my splits are listed below.

	Time	Total Time	Avg Pace
1	6:37	0:06:37	6:37
2	7:34	0:14:11	7:06
3	6:31	0:20:42	6:54
4	6:53	0:27:35	6:54
5	6:40	0:34:15	6:51
6	6:27	0:40:42	6:47
7	6:19	0:47:01	6:43
8	6:33	0:53:34	6:42
9	6:31	1:00:05	6:41
10	6:24	1:06:29	6:39
11	6:29	1:12:58	6:38
12	6:29	1:19:27	6:37
13	6:27	1:25:54	6:36
14	6:11	1:32:05	6:35
15	6:23	1:38:28	6:34
16	6:02	1:44:30	6:32
17	6:13	1:50:43	6:31
18	6:24	1:57:07	6:30
18.6	3:37	2:00:44	6:29

They managed to squeeze 30k into the smallest town in Massachusetts and kept me on course. Nice job!
photo credits - Krissy Kozlosky
Complete photo set can be found here

Wapack Trail Race

Last year I did this race when it was only 17.5 miles and it was hard. I didn't have any long lasting memories of why I shouldn't do it again so I decided to go back for round 2. The race follows the Wapack Trail from Windblown XC ski area in New Ipswich,NH to Asburnham,MA....and back, climbing 4 mountains each way with a total elevation gain of 3500ft. A reroute of the first couple of miles changed the distance to 18 miles this year and changed the start/finish setup dramatically (IMHO). Instead of staring UP the hill, we'd be facing the opposite direction and actually have a fairly long downhill start.
Having run the 'other' Wapack trail race in May (end to end 22 miler), I was familiar with the new trail up the first of 4 peaks (Barrett Mt). For some reason 99% of the runners just wouldn't line up at the starting line, choosing to mingle a good 10-15ft behind it (see picture below). I have no idea why, other than maybe they weren't quite sure which way to go.

At the starting line

Most of the first mile+ is a steady downhill on old logging roads, which led to a fairly fast start for an 18 mile trail race. The new climb up Barrett is much more runnable but still pretty steep. No wimpy switchbacks getting up this one, just a straight shot to the top. I went out fairly easy and climbed steadily, and was probably in my finishing position (10th to12th place) by the time I reached the 1st summit 2 miles in. It doesn't mean there wasn't any racing going on. I traded positions all day with various runners, mostly with Scott Patnode. Scott and I ran together a good part of the day. The Wapack is notorious for being a fairly hard trail to follow, especially when you're running it. Thankfully this year someone went out and marked (with blue arrows) some of the trickier sections (mostly on the summits). It was very easy to follow...for once!!
I was feeling pretty good on the way out and eventually opened up about a 3 minute lead on Scott by the time I hit the half-way point in 1:24 (10th place). If you want to know where your competitors are, an out and back will let you know. Keith Schmitt was about 5 minutes ahead, Jimmie Cochran about 4 minutes behind and the eventual 10th place finisher was right behind me. He would pass me pretty quickly on the steep climb back up Watatic.

Battle wounds for the day

Once you summit Watatic (on the way back) you have a fairly long downhill/flat stretch of about 3 miles on mostly logging-type roads. It's a nice recovery for your feet and legs. Unfortunately I chose this easy section to verify gravity really does exist. While I'm not entirely sure what happened, I'm guessing I was reaching for a gel in my front vest pocket when I crashed and burned, landing on my left shoulder and left side of my face. I went down fast and hard, laying in the middle of the trail for several seconds waiting for the stars to go away before eventually sitting up with a splitting headache. I was somewhere between mile 11 and 12. I sat there for several minutes trying to relax, settle down and make sure I wasn't injured too badly. A couple of runners (still on their way out) eventually came by and asked if I was ok and whether I thought I needed medical attention. At the same time Scott went running by.
That was all the motivation I needed to get running again. I immediately took off, hoping to chase Scott down. I caught him about 1 1/2 miles later, mostly because he was slowing down. Several times I thought about packing it in. If there was a way to get off this stupid trail and get back to my car with very little effort I would have done it.
I'm pretty sure I walked the entire way up Pratt Mt and ran sparingly over to New Ipswich Mt as well. I saw some hikers near the summit of New Ipswich so I decided to get running again and at least make it look like I was racing. Ugh. They were nice enough to cheer me on which I appreciated. However, about 10 seconds after passing them they began cheering someone else on. Who the heck was right behind me? Jimmie C. had caught up to me. Damn. Still 3 miles to go.

 Approaching the finish

If nothing else, the sight of Jimmie got me racing again and I began to push a little harder hoping to stay in front. My pace definitely quickened as I tried to open up whatever gap I could (on the uphills), only to lose it all on the downhills. As we headed down Barrett he was right on my heals but passing was tough on the single track and I wasn't about to step off to the side and just let him pass. When we reached the bottom and turned onto the logging road he made his move and passed. I tucked in behind him and tried to keep him as close as possible. I guess I wasn't really paying attention on the way out because this last section lasted FOREVER and was mostly uphill. Rough guess I'd say it was around 1 1/2 miles from the bottom of Barrett Mt to the finish. We were running it like it was 400m. Around every turn, every corner the trail just kept going. I got close a couple of times but I didn't have any gas left in the tank, and eventually finished 7 second back in 3:00:12, 12th overall (complete results). Not a bad day.

photo credits - Kim Allen & Wapack Website

24 Hours of Great Glen

Having done this race once (last year) and having significantly upgraded my bike, any anxiety I may have had (see last year) was non-existent. I was totally looking forward to this race and couldn't wait to get started.
acidotic RACING would be sending two 4-person teams to compete: aR-Black and aR-Grey. Hey, don't blame me on the names, blame Mr. Dunn.

The 'Boneyard'

The course was a roughly 8.5 mile loop at the base of Mt Washington with nearly 1100ft of climbing...EACH LAP. You climb early and you climb often. I'm not sure what the breakdown is but I'd guess it was roughly 60% carriage roads vs 40% single track. The course was nearly identical to last year with the exception of an additional climb (go figure) up behind the Great Glen Center and a short section of single track that took some of the speed out of one of the carriage road corners. Oh, and the 'boneyard' or 'plunge' hill near the finish (popular with spectators because of the potential for crashes) was redone with the addition of a million 'stairs' on the steep hill (which made for a jarring ride each lap).

Blueberry Hill

The race itself goes from noon on Saturday to noon on Sunday. However, we all headed up on Friday and camped at the base of Mt Washington. Chris 'do you know who I am' Dunn was able to get a huge camp area reserved for us right at the base of the auto road. Although I think the effort is somewhat easier than a 24hr running relay (like Reach the Beach), the logistics are harder and the rest is shorter. We had roughly 2 1/2hrs between rides. In that time we had to get back to the campsite, change, clean & fix your bike, eat, change, check your bike and head back to the transition. The 'downtime' definitely wasn't relaxing. However, this year we made a change, actually two changes: we had a camp cook (Nancy Clark) and a camp mechanic (Jay Meyers). Both did a fantastic job keeping 8 hungry, tired, 'I don't want to work on my bike' guys happy.

aR-Black and aR-Grey

Mountain bike racing is weird from a runners perspective. They have a gazillion categories (32 I think), some folks are WAY too serious and most are WAY to into their bikes. Other than that I'd say most are a much nicer version of road bikers. One of the best features of this particular race is the real-time scoring. Each rider carries a RFID card and we scan in and out of each lap. Results are updated in real time throughout the race. So as soon as you finish your lap you can find out have fast you did, and where your team is in the standings. Very cool. This year there were nearly 200 teams, 28 in our class (Mens Sport..whatever that means??). In reality there is only one team though: the other acidotic RACING team. That's what makes this event such a blast. You're out there riding with 400+ riders but you pretty much ignore them all except the rider on the other aR team. Chris attempts to stack the teams, I mean match the teams evenly, each year. After all, we want to race head to head. We want it coming down to the last lap.

This years teams were:
ar-Black (Austin S, Chris D, Ri F, Steve S)
ar-Grey (Ted H, Jay D, Steve W, Brayden D)

Ted near the finish

Near the finish

Although there was some friendly trash talking going on between the teams, I'd say most was between Chris and I (probably started by Chris...as usual). As I wait for Chris to mature as a runner (and catch up), he is clearly a stronger mountain biker, kicking my butt last year. I had two goals this year: beat Chris on as many laps as possible and make sure aR-Grey takes home the acidotic Team Title. In addition to upgrading to a spanky new Trek this year, I've also put in a lot of miles on the trails. I was ready to challenge. As it turned out, Chris would be their 2nd rider and I'd be our 3rd. Therefore, we weren't riding head to head. He'd post a lap time and I'd have to go out and try to beat it.
On lap #1 Chris rides a  52:24 lap. As soon as I finished I check my lap time: 52:21.
On lap #2 Chris rides a 52:42 lap. As soon as I finished I check my lap time: 52:34.
Of course I wasn't rubbing this in his face at all...nope, not me. I was pumped.

My next 2 laps would be ridden back to back and at night. We do this to give everyone a little more downtime at night and hopefully get some sleep. The first lap went well and I felt good. Night rides are always slower (for obvious reasons) and my time was 58:47. My second lap was a disaster. Maybe not that bad but I was bonking badly. I had run out of energy and was literally struggling to stay on my bike. I crashed nearly a dozen times, coming completely off my bike every time but each time I landed on my feet. I guess if you're going to crash, this is the way to do it. I finally made it back in 1:05:56.
Lap 3: Chris 1:00:17 vs my 58:47
Lap 4: Chris 1:07:58 vs my 1:05:56

Coming off Blueberry Hill

Wow, this was going better than I thought (at Chris' expense of course).  Well it wasn't long after that our little fun and games would come to an end. As I was coming into the finish of my 5th lap (58:51) I came across a biker pushing his bike....with no chain. The racer was Chris. I was totally bummed. I think one of (if not the biggest) fear of all riders is getting a mechanical failure. It's one thing to lose on ability or skill or training but nobody wants to lose on a bike failure. The same failure would plague him on his final lap as I passed him again around mile 6. Although rideable, he couldn't really climb well with the chain. I tried to get him to ride with me (mostly down hill at this point) but he clearly wasn't in it anymore. Within a 1/2 mile he was out of site. My last lap went well as I finished up in 54:55. In the end aR-Grey crushed aR-Black, finishing 2 laps ahead. It's not the way we all wanted it to end. I mean, I knew aR-Grey would kick butt but we wanted to compete on ability, not on who had the better running bike.
I had a fantastic time regardless. I was happy with most of my riding (except the climbing..I still stink). The course was rideable and in great shape and I barely had to get off my bike for anything. Can't wait until next year!

Final results:
aR-Grey was 18th in the Sport Class and 40th overall (with 26 laps completed)
aR-Black was 22nd in the Sport Class and 49th overall (with 24 laps completed)

Bradbury Breaker Beatdown

I know, it sounds like a Channel 7 news flash. There just isn't any other way to describe what I did to the acidotic anchor (again). He may never race again, and for that I feel bad......Ok, I'm over it now.
About a dozen acidotic RACING folks headed up to Bradbury Mountain State Park just west of Freeport, Maine to dish out the latest whooping on our hairy friends to the north (Trail Monsters). A near perfect day for racing on this exceptionally hilly 9 mile trail race (results).
I had warmed up on the first mile or so of the course so I knew it would be a fairly fast start with plenty of room for passing. With this in mind I seated myself 3-4 rows back at the start and 'went with the flow'. A ton of folks took off really fast and I just tucked into the pack and went along for the ride. Within a 1/2 mile or so I had picked my way through quite a few runners but didn't see any familiar faces in front (ie Chris Dunn or Jeff Walker, both masters). I knew little about the course other than we'd climb Bradbury Mt 4 times (or so I was told).  For most of the race I'd go back and forth with Adam Zukowski, he'd climb a bit better and I'd descent a bit better. In either case we'd stay within yards of each other for most of the race.

Rockingham Recreational Trail

Rail Trail - Auburn to Raymond

I decided to try something new for my long run this weekend (besides actually doing one). The Rockingham Recreational Trail runs right by the FOMBA trails where I mountain bike often. The plan was to run for a couple of hours and then ride for a couple of hours (not a well thought out plan).
The rail trail travels 25+ miles from Manchester to Newfields and is a mix of gravel, dirt, sand other non-asphalt type surfaces and is off limits to wheeled (powered) vehicles.
I started a little later than planned (8am) but the morning fog kept the temps under control and it was fairly pleasant to run. I went with my Inov-8 295's (good plan) and a 40oz Camelbak and a watch. Plan: run 1hr 10 minutes, and turn around.
Early on the trail crosses a few roads in Candia but gets fairly remote in no time. I only saw one person once I got away from Massabesic. Since I was running by time and not mileage, I wasn't exactly sure how far I ran but I turned around somewhere between Onway Lake and the Raymond Depot, estimated at 8.75 miles. I ran the return trip in 1:07 for a total of 2:17 (~17.5 miles).
When I got back to my truck I changed my clothes and hopped on my bike for a little riding. Oddly, it was more difficult riding on tired legs. Note to self: riding technical single track on tired legs is dumb.After struggling for about an hour, I decided to throw in the towel and call it a day, otherwise I'd be getting way to personal with the ground.

The good thing about running long on trails is it doesn't beat up your legs (I know...duh). I was able to get back out on Sunday for 6.8 miles plus another 1:16 on the bike.

More trails to explore someday - Southern New Hampshire Rail Trails

Ultimate Runner, Ultimate Consistency

Near the finish of the 5k...painful.

Wednesday night was our annual Ultimate Runner night at track (results). Our club puts on a age and gender graded competition during the break between spring and fall outdoor track sessions. The competition consists of running a 400m, 800m, 1 mile and 5k race all in one night. On paper it seems kind of fun, in reality it's much harder than it looks. I wrote about Ultimate Runner in more detail last year if you're interested
Once again temps were in the low 90's and sunny (sound familiar?). Have I mentioned this is my least favorite weather to run in? Probably. Anyways, nothing outstanding to write about this year. I took it easy (relatively speaking) in the shorter events, hoping to have a decent 5k. Long story short, I got a stomach cramp shortly after the 1st mile in the 5k and really struggled just to finish. Not sure if it was heat related or not. Legs were fine.

So, not a great night but I'm glad I did it anyways. Lots of fast masters out there! I thought the interesting part was comparing my times from last year to this year. Almost scary consistent, which at my age I should be grateful for!

	2009	2010
	Actual	Actual
400m	01:07	01:08
800m	02:31	02:32
1M	05:34	05:27
5k	19:06	19:08
	2009	2010
	Age Graded	Age Graded
400m	01:00	01:00
800m	02:16	02:16
1M	05:05	04:57
5k	17:44	17:37

Last year I finished 5th overall, this year I finished 4th. In three more years I should win this thing!

Photo credit - Jim Rhoades from Coolrunning

All quiet in July

I was looking at my 2010 race calender and noticed July was the only month without a race scheduled. Odd I suppose unless you know me just a little. Did I ever mention how much I unlike the heat? The only thing worse is running in the previously mentioned unlikable heat. The summer is my off season.

 On a totally unrelated topic, I've officially gone vain-less. I finally decided the thieves in Concord take enough of my money and I didn't need to give them $40/yr for the privilege of having my vanity plate. For now the blog will remain the same (unless they charge for that too).