Muddy Moose - Trail Racing has Begun!

I'll be honest. I didn't see that coming.
I went into yesterday's 14m trail race (results) in Wolfeboro,NH a wee bit nervous. I ran just under 100 miles total for the month of March and just over 100 for the month of April. Banging out 20+ mile weeks just isn't the kind of mileage I was hoping for leading into this season.
Last year at this time I was running nearly 50 miles/week and riding 30-40 miles on the bike and ran the Muddy Moose 14m race in 1:51:34. So, being a data-driven guy, I was pretty sure I was in for a 2+hr hurtfest this year. Bring it on!

It was sunny but cool (mid 40's) and windy as all heck. Without the wind I'd go with just a singlet but the wind was COLD standing around at the start. After waffling for a few minutes I finally decided to go with a singlet and what Chris Dunn called "arm pants". I'm sure it's some sort of fashion faux pas but it was just enough to keep from getting frost bite (at least at the starting line). I told Deb I'd probably be around 2hrs, lined up a couple of rows deep with Mike Wade and waited for the start.

The mostly out and back course starts out on the road and heads downhill pretty quickly for about a half a mile or so before heading into the woods. Knowing I had absolutely no long runs under my belt was always on my mind. So, with that little nugget always present, I was very careful not to go out too fast. The initial trail was heavily logged since last year, with lots of branches, sticks and other sharp objects just waiting to impale you if you stumbled. Fancy footwork was a must. Of course one of the problems with going out a little slower is you get caught up in the crowds, which makes it a bit more challenging picking out obstacles (like sticks, rocks, and shoe-sucking mud pits). You tend to get funneled into directions you might not choose on your own (like the middle of a shoe-sucking mud pit). Most of the serious mud is in the first 2 miles (and the last 2 miles) so it's hard to avoid (because there's so much of it) but if you can navigate around it (especially if you're running 14 miles) you'd be better off.  Some sections it's just not possible. I got bogged down (pun intended) pretty early on in the mud and Ian Parlin (TMR) nearly ran me over trying to get by me. He was gone in a flash.

photo credit - Josh Spaulding

 Eventually the crowds thin out around the 2 mile mark (as the 4 milers go right and the 14 milers go left). The course heads down a dirt/gravel road for about 1 1/2 miles and gives you a chance to open up the stride, loosen up the legs and bang off some of the mud collected over the previous few miles. By this time I was running in a small group with Mike Wade & Kurt Burna (GCS) and fellow aR member Leslie Beckwith. The pace felt comfortable but I was still worried about bonking in the later miles. The next section of the course is called escarpment and is the only section of single track we 'run' on all day. It's a very steep (but short) climb and we all walked most of it. The ridge run on top is short and then it drops down quickly on the back side over a boulder field before returning to the more traditional double track. The next mile mostly heads downhill, and I was reminded how bad I am at running downhill. Nearly everyone in my group would go by me on the downhills and I'd catch back up on the ups. Somewhere in this section Mike dropped out with a calf injury but I didn't know it until after I finished. A short while later the 2nd o/a female went flying by (on a downhill) but I would catch her a little while later around the 5 mile water stop. We would trade places for the rest of the race. I was still feeling pretty good so I picked up the pace just a bit as we made a slow climb to the lollypop turn around loop.

The lead runner (Kevin Tilton) passed me on the climb, a few minutes sooner then the place he passed me last year. I assumed I was running slower but in reality he was flying to a new CR. The lollypop can be run in either direction but for the second year in a row I went right (or counter-clockwise). This section, although not muddy, is VERY wet, with deep, cold water everywhere. My feet hurt they were so cold. I got around most of the beaver dam water by running over the top of the dam. I checked my watch for the only time all day at the end of the loop (1hr exactly). By this time my 'arm pants' had turned into 'wrist shorts' as the temperature was quite comfortable.
The next few miles were mostly a gentle down hill. Last year this section was a little wet, this year not so much. I was still feeling strong and tried to stay with the 2nd o/a female. I never looked back but I always assumed Mike, Leslie and Kurt were right there. The course loops back around to the 5 mile water stop (now at mile 9ish) and turns left. The rest of the course is the same as the way out.

I passed the 2nd o/a female on the climbs and held her off until the steep descent on the escarpment where once again she went flying by. During this section I got my first glimpse of another aR runner, Ri Fahnestock. Ri looked like was struggling a bit so I was hoping I could catch him on the dirt road section. About a mile onto the dirt road I could now see Ian Parlin as well. I was slowly closing on both of them but I wasn't sure if I was closing fast enough. Just before the last water stop at mile 12ish I passed Ri and encouraged him to stick with me. I was motoring pretty good and now had my sights on Ian. The mud in the last couple of miles  (with 200+ runners going through it already) was much harder to navigate on the way back. More than once I almost came to a stop as I got stuck in the mud. I got close to Ian but not close enough that I thought I could make a legitimate move as we left the woods and hit the last uphill road section before the finish. I finally made a quick peek over my shoulder to see if  anyone was nearby and then just held my position until the finish, finishing 20 seconds behind Ian and 4 seconds behind the 2nd o/a female.

me and Ian after the race

 I was shocked that my time (1:50:29, 18th o/a) was over a minute faster than last year.  How the heck was that possible? Heck, I actually felt pretty good, probably running the second half faster then the first half. Kids, I wouldn't necessarily recommend running 20 miles a week and then signing up for a 14 miler but maybe this race was the spark I needed to get motivated and hopefully PR at the Pineland Farms 25k this year.

Guilt Post

Blogs are more fun when you have something to say, and it probably helps if it's interesting, upbeat or at least moderately useful to one of the 3 readers that I'm aware of. Unfortunately I've been a little frustrated over the last 2-3 months and have not been in a happy place when it comes to my running (and I'm not even injured).
I feel like I've been a human HEPA filter, attracting every virus floating around. Good news for my friends and families (you're welcome, BTW), bad news for me. I've been sick more times than I can count (actually, I can count to 4 but that didn't sound as impressive).
I run a week, I take a week off. I run a week, I take week off. Repeat, often.
The latest round (pneumonia) has been the hardest and longest. It's been dragging on for nearly 2 weeks and doesn't show any signs of clearing up anytime soon. I started running a couple of days ago (mostly because I'm bored out of my mind) and surprisingly it's been slow and difficult. I'm guessing it's not normal for my heart rate to be above 150bpm at 9min+ pace.
On a positive note, mountain biking isn't nearly as taxing on my respiratory system and I've almost enjoyed it the last couple of days. Yippie!
So, if I can stitch together a couple of weeks of running, I might be up for a trail race in the near future. That's the plan anyways.

Smuttynose Palooza Indoor Half Marathon

During the winter months, the Gate City Striders have indoor track workouts at the Hampshire Dome in Milford,NH. I am told it's one of the larger indoor tracks around (roughly a 1/5th mile per lap). Even though it's the only indoor track I've run on, it's my favorite. The 2-lane rubberized track has fairly sharp corners (which are slightly banked), but it doesn't seem to affect your stride too much (at least in track workouts). The banked corners seem to help with the transition in and out of the turns. So why is this important? Well, the track is great for doing 400m or 800m repeats. When we start doing mile repeats it gets a bit repetitive, and becomes mentally tough....and that's only 5 laps.

Last year the folks at Loco Running put on an indoor half marathon at the Hampshire Dome. I thought they were nuts and the runners who signed up even nuttier. Jump forward to this year and I start seeing the ads for the Smuttynose Palooza Indoor Half Marathon (results). This time it intrigued me. It must have been the name change (kudos to the marketing guys). In a year that I'm looking to branch out and try some new things, I decided why not. From the start I figured this was more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge. I was mostly right.

Since the track is so small, the race was broken up into two 50-person heats, one at 2pm and one at 4pm. I was in the 4pm heat (as a side note, this might be the only race I've ever done at 4pm). Chip timing was a must (and even that wasn't foolproof). The RD had the track wheel measured this year and determined we had to run 68 full laps plus a little more for the 13.1 miles. Last year they ran 66.5 laps for the same race (more on that later). They also had a flat screen TV setup which displayed the runners lap time and # of laps run. In addition, Andy Schachat was there announcing names, lap times and laps run throughout the race. Thankfully he would do this sparingly and not on every lap.

To me, the best way to run this race would be to figure out my goal pace, convert it to lap time and then run every lap at that pace. I looked at some race reports from last year, and even last years website and found several references to the track being 317 meters. As it turns out, 66.5 laps * 317m = 13.1 miles. Apparently this is what they used last year. So my goal was to run around 6:30 to 6:35 min/mile pace or 1:17 to 1:18 lap times. Unfortunately, I forgot what lap time I was supposed to run by the time I got to the Dome. I thought it was 1:15 laps but couldn't remember. I guess I would have to run on how it felt instead. We were told we'd record 69 laps on the monitor (the first lap recorded was only a few feet based on where we started on the track). Andy would announce when we had a few laps to go so we'd know when we were finished. Seemed pretty straightforward.

Since there was a race going on before our 4pm start, we couldn't warm up on the track (and I wasn't dressed to run outside). I had zero warmup. When we finally lined up a little after 4pm, I went from resting to half marathon pace in one lap and stayed that way for nearly 1 1/2hrs. 

It took a few laps to figure out a comfortable pace. It was pretty clear 1:15 laps weren't going to happen so I backed off ever so slightly and targeted 1:17 laps instead. The race itself was pretty uneventful. I would only get passed by one person (Jason Porter). He would lap me every 4 laps or so. Every once in a while Andy would call out my splits and tell me how many laps I'd run, counting down the last 3-4 laps as I got close to 69 laps. I picked up the pace near the end hoping to finish strong and crossed the line in 1:28:48. What? That doesn't sound right. Oh well, I grabbed a beer and a slice of pizza (no cool down run either), relaxed for a few minutes and eventually went home. Later that evening when the results were posted my time was changed to 1:27:37. Better but still not what I expected.

Lap	Split	Lap	Split	Lap	Split	Lap	Split
1	00:11	19	01:18	37	01:18	55	01:17
2	01:14	20	01:20	38	01:18	56	01:17
3	01:13	21	01:17	39	01:17	57	01:16
4	01:14	22	01:18	40	01:17	58	01:16
5	01:16	23	01:18	41	01:19	59	01:17
6	01:16	24	01:18	42	01:18	60	01:16
7	01:15	25	01:18	43	01:17	61	01:17
8	01:16	26	01:19	44	01:18	62	01:17
9	01:15	27	01:19	45	01:18	63	01:18
10	01:16	28	01:18	46	01:19	64	01:16
11	01:16	29	01:17	47	01:19	65	01:16
12	01:17	30	01:16	48	01:18	66	01:14
13	01:17	31	01:19	49	01:19	67	01:17
14	01:18	32	01:18	50	01:17	68	01:15
15	01:21	33	01:17	51	01:18	69	01:13
16	01:18	34	01:16	52	01:15	70	01:10
17	01:20	35	01:18	53	01:18
18	01:17	36	01:20	54	01:19

So what are my thoughts on running an indoor half marathon on a 311m track?

• Although the weather was better than outdoors, the air is stagnant. A little warm and no breeze. Not awful, just different. Hard to explain.
• There are 272 turns. Unlike an outdoor track, the corners are square so you notice the turns more. The banked turns helped but the turns do a number on your feet. My feet were constantly sliding in my shoes on the turns and friction created numerous blisters on the bottoms of my feet and between a few of my toes.
• 50 people running on an indoor 311m track is crowded. Traffic rules were in effect, runners were instructed to stay on the inside lane unless passing. Unfortunately, people don't follow rules. Every lap was spent weaving in and out of people, sometimes even running off the track entirely because of the crowds of runners.
• I bet I passed nearly 1000 runners throughout the race. That would never happen outdoors.
• I ran alone the entire race.
• Here's the deal on the track length. Last year they called it 317m. This year they called it 311m. That's a difference of  nearly 3 laps when running 13.1 miles. So which is correct? Both, sort of.  The 311m is the measurement of the inside of lane 1. The 317m is the measurement of the inside of lane 2. If you run just outside of lane 2 it's 325m around. It doesn't sound like much but when 5 laps make up a mile, the extra distance starts to add up. 
• They had signs scattered around the track indicating the various mile markers along with how many laps made up each mile. In my opinion, the mile markers were not helpful. It was very hard to keep track what lap you were on (even with a TV monitor and announcer).
• The TV monitor displayed your lap time and recorded how many laps you had run. However, the distance between the timing mat and the monitor was just a tad too close. The purpose of the monitor was so you could see your lap time and # of laps run. However, as I ran by, my name would show up just as I was running by and I couldn't see my lap time or laps run. Thankfully Andy would call out this info once in a while.
• I thought miles 5-10 were the hardest. The fun of running on the track had worn off and you didn't have enough laps done to know the end was near.
• The discrepancy of my initial finishing time to the posted time was because I actually ran 70 laps (instead of the 69 required). It seems the TV monitor was hooked up to a different timing mat then the official timing mat. The TV mat said I ran 69, but the official mat said I ran 70.  Not a huge deal since they corrected it but it did affect the last couple of laps. In fact, it negated my fastest lap of the day, which turned out to be my 70th. 
• Running a consistent pace is definitely the way to run this race.
• I don't think running indoors is faster than running an outdoor half. Sure it's flat, but sometimes hills are good. They force you to use different muscles and work harder and they also have downhills which allow you to run faster.
• You cannot run the tangents indoors.
• I spent most of the time running in lane 2 (or further out) so there's no doubt I ran further than 13.1 miles. I'm pretty sure my pace was closer to 6:30-6:35 pace, as opposed to my official pace of 6:42. This is not a complaint. I'm ok with the official time. They measured the track correctly (this time). But if you're looking to run a PR, indoor is not the place to do it. 
• It is truly a mentally tough race. I had fun. I'm glad I did it....once. I probably would not do another indoor half marathon though.

Time to Get Serious!

Time's up. I don't do serious.

It's a new year so I figured I'd blog about running, mostly because I didn't want to change my blog name. I've been in a running funk lately and wasn't really enjoying my runs. Thankfully I seem to be over it now and I'm looking forward to some running (and racing) in the next few months. Contrary to popular belief, I HAVE been running and even managed a couple of races recently.
 RACING
The most recent was the Peanut Butter Chip Chase 5k in Temple, NH on New Years Day. This was my 9th year running this race (no doubt the most I've run the same race). A nice, low-key, small town race and a moderately difficult course. In eight attempts, I've yet to break 19 minutes. This year was no different. Not a great race (time wise) but I did manage to run negative splits for each mile so that's something positive to take away from this one.
TRACK
Yesterday was the first day of indoor track practice at the Hampshire Dome. The coached workouts put on by the Gate City Striders goes for 10 weeks and is something I look forward to each year. As I probably mention every year, I LOVE this track. Of course, I don't have much experience with indoor tracks but I do know this is a big one (nearly 1/5th mile per lap). The opening workout was 6 x 800 repeats @ 5k pace. Once I figured out a pace, I managed to run fairly consistent laps (2:52, 2:56, 2:54, 2:54, 2:54, 2:54). Overall, a good, solid workout.
2011 REVIEW
I think last year I skipped the ole "Year in Review" post so I'll think I'll start a trend and skip it this year too. Honestly, there wasn't much to review anyways.
2012 PREVIEW
So, what's in store for 2012? Well, I have a few surprises this year. I plan to venture a bit outside my comfort zone and try a few new races and of course stick with a few of my favorites. The first one is coming up in 2 weeks. It's an indoor half marathon (at the Hampshire Dome) put on by LOCO Running. This one seems more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge. We'll see if I still like this track after 68 laps.
As far as snowshoe racing: well, I guess the weather speaks for itself. The longer we go without snow, the less interested I become. I'm almost to the point of writing this season off all together, even if it does snow....eventually.

Competitive Fire

Probably the biggest thing I missed during my running hiatus this summer was the competition that comes with racing. I don't mean the actual competitors (although I'm sure I missed some of them too!), but the actual act of competing. I love to race. Not because I'm an elite athlete. Not because I need to win. Not because I need another t-shirt or medal. But because I have a constant desire to push myself. To work harder. To get faster. When I sign up for yet another race, Deb usually says "I can't help myself" but I think we're on the same page. I think she know I need to race.
The lack of running didn't bother me nearly as much as the lack of racing. I can always find something else to do to stay in shape or fill the time (mostly). I got used to not running. I mountain biked. I had fun. But I wasn't racing. It's amazing how annoying social media can be when you can't do what you like to do (especially when 90% of my FB friends are runners). Man, did you guys bug me!

I've now been running for about 3 months.  I can't say I've got that competitive fire yet, but at least I have the pilot lit. I've taken it real slow (a little gun shy about getting injured again), maybe even too slow. I generally average about 30 miles a week. That's fine for staying in shape but it's not enough if you want to get faster. I have been racing a bit, which can be tough this time of year. It seems the rest of the running world is winding down and I'm trying to ramp up. Not a lot of races to choose from but I found a few. I ran a couple of 5k trail races in November on the familiar trails of Mine Falls. I ran The Great Gobbler 5k Trail Race on Thanksgiving (only the second time I've ever run a race on Thanksgiving, believe it or not). Finally, this past weekend I had the lead off leg of one of our Mens Masters team at the Mill Cities Relay. Considering I averaged nearly 6:40's for a 5k in September (might be a PW), I guess I should be happy with 6:15's for 5.4 miles. I am not complaining. I'm just happy to be running again and more importantly, racing again. Time to ramp up the miles. Watch your back, I might be right behind you!

RANDOM NOTE: I took some pictures on legs 3, 4 and 5 after running my leg on Sunday. Feel free to share with anyone who ran the Mill Cities Relay.

2011 Mill Cites Relay Pictures

Pinnacle Challenge - Solo Edition

Team acidotic RACING

The Pinnacle Challenge VII in Newport,NH is probably the biggest team event of the year for acidotic RACING (30+  this year!). The unique double duathlon event (5m road run, 5.4m mountain bike, 13.75m road bike, 3.65m trail run) offers something for everyone. For the past couple of years I was on a 4-person men's team, running the 5m road leg and 3.65m trail leg previously. Early on in 2011 (before I got injured surprisingly) I decided to do it solo.

Fast forward to September of this year. I hadn't run in nearly 3 months due to a nagging injury. Thankfully I kept busy with a ton of mountain biking and some tolerable road biking, but no running. So I had roughly one month to ease back into running just enough so I wouldn't embarrass myself at Pinnacle. I needed every day.

Teammate Jason Massa (who has done this race solo every year I believe) offered some advice - do each leg as hard as you can and hope to hang on at the end. Ok, I'm sure I'm paraphrasing a bit but I liked his advice. It is a race after all. My brain doesn't have a 'go easy' gear during a race. I guess the point was you'd probably over-think each leg too much if tried to pace yourself along the way. The other (more important) piece of advice was to make sure you eat and drink, primarily on the road bike. Noted.

I lined up with teammates Liz Hall and Austin Stonebreaker for the 5m leg. I think we all stayed within a few seconds of each other for the entire out/back run. Surprisingly, this was the leg I was most worried about and I was quite pleased with the results. I ran hard, finishing the run in 31:47 (6:21 pace). I quickly swapped shoes, threw on a helmet and headed out on the mountain bike for leg #2.

Finishing the 5m leg

Ok, a couple of things to note if you plan to do this solo. First, it's much harder going from running to biking then biking to running (like in a triathlon). Second, wear gloves. Finally, carrying a 30lb mountain bike up a gazillion stairs on the side of a ski jump (after running 5 miles) is tiring.You've been warned.

Evil stairs

Yes, both the mountain bike and the trail run legs go up these stairs, located about a 1/4 mile into the leg. My legs were burning when I made it to the top with my bike. And it doesn't get much easier, with nearly ALL the climbing located in the first half of the bike (and run for that matter). I could do no better than ride the entire climb in my granny gear but at least I was able to ride the entire thing. A few days of heavy rain had left the course very wet and very muddy. By itself it's probably a fun course. Throw in a 5m run for a warm up and the fun kind of goes away. No complaints. It was a nice course. Tough, fairly technical but rideable. Once over the summit I was pushed pretty hard by another rider and we flew on the way down, eventually teaming up with fellow aR teammates Mike Sallade and Amanda House on the screaming descent. We swapped positions a few times before reaching the transition in 42:49, completely covered in mud.

Heading out on the mt bike

The next transition was easy. All I had to do was swap bikes and go. This would be my least favorite leg. The course was a straight 6 mile shot out, followed by a fairly intimidating 1 mile hill and then back to the transition area. As instructed, I drank and ate as much as I could on the ride. I'm sure I went way easier than I should have on this leg. I never really pushed myself. By this point in the race I was looking at it more like a recovery ride. I battled aR teammate Robin Allen-Burke up the monster hill before she put the hammer down and crushed my on the way back. Overall it was a lackluster performance on my part as I finished up in 45:55, a fairly slow 18mph avg. Glad that's done...

Muddy me on the road bike

Generally I had been transitioning fairly well (although there are probably some improvements I could have made to speed things up a bit). I put my trail shoes on, grabbed a bottle of water and headed out on the run. I was tired but felt pretty good but did walk the evil stairs. Like the mountain bike course, the trail run course is all climbing in the first half. In fact, the run course was about 90% of the mountain bike course. I shuffled up the hills, running behind another runner most of the way up. Near the summit I passed and led for a while as we began the descent. Somewhere near the top I made an attempt to jump over a small tree that crossed the trail. As soon as I jumped my right hamstring cramped severely, stopping me in my tracks. The runner went by, asked if I was ok and then continued on. I tried several times to continue on and couldn't even take a single step. Darn it. I had about 2 miles of downhill to go and I couldn't move. I tried to stretch my hamstring as best I could (I do not stretch very well). After several minutes of stretching I was finally able to slowly walk. Eventually I managed to turn my walk into a slow jog and then into a fairly decent run. I was completely paranoid about my hamstring seizing up again, especially running downhill but it held up enough for me to finish the run in a somewhat painful 32:52.

At the finish line...finally!

My 2:35:51 finishing time was good enough for 8th overall in the solo division, 3rd in the masters division (behind Jason Massa in 2nd). I was more than happy with the results , all things considered. It was hard, it was mostly fun but next year I'm pretty sure I'm going back to team competition!

Photo credits - Gianina Lindsey

FOMBA to Bear Brook Ride

I was talking to a fellow mountain bike rider in Horse Hill a few weeks ago and he mentioned riding from FOMBA in Auburn to Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown. I've seen the snowmobile trail signs around FOMBA, some mentioning Bear Brook but I never really paid attention to them. I pretty much just rode the mountain bike specific single track that FOMBA is famous for. After doing a little research and recruiting a few riders (Chris, Brayden and Dan), I put together a rough plan.We'd drop a vehicle at Bear Brook and start the ride at FOMBA. I had planned 3-4hrs of riding based on pretty much nothing. Originally I had planned to ride a few miles of single track at FOMBA first but Chris astutely pointed out we could ride there anytime. Lets save the riding for Bear Brook instead. Shortly before 10am we headed out.

So, how do you get there you ask? Well, turns out those snowmobile folks have quite the trail network, and do a decent job with signage (but lack in posting online maps). Starting from the Depot Rd parking lot at FOMBA, we rode the fire roads northeast until it crosses the Rockingham Rail Trail. The primary reason for this was to check out all the signage at this intersection. It's here that you'll see a sign saying "Bear Brook" this way. Otherwise, if you just ride up Depot Rd for a 1/4 mile or so, the trail actually crosses there, saving some riding time.

FOMBA to Bear Brook Map

 The main corridor (aka trail) going north/south is called Trail 15. We picked it up on the north side of Tower Hill Pond. There were lots of snowmobile trails along the way. The problem was they were just numbers (Trail 6, Trail 12, etc..). Without a snowmobile trail-specific map, they were useless (and like I said earlier, they apparently don't publish their maps online). So we kept riding until we saw the sign for Trail 15N (about 4.5miles in).

Trail 15N would take us all the way into Bear Brook (and Canada if you kept on following it north). For the most part it was very easy to follow. We got hung up for a few minutes when we came across the only paved road we had to cross (Rt27, about 7.5 miles in) because we missed a turn on the powerlines and came out on the road, but not where the trail actually crosses. A little local help got us back on track.

Elevation Profile from FOMBA to Bear Brook

There was some standing water on the trails from a few days of heavy rain but generally the trail offered some great riding (but it does climb steadily going north). Around 9.5miles Trail 15N turned left onto the Chester Turnpike. It was neither in Chester nor a Turnpike (but is on the map). I'd call it a very rugged dirt road at best. After about a mile though we'd finally make the right turn into the southwest corner of Bear Brook (roughly 10 miles into our ride). Although not signed, this section on the Bear Brook Trail Map was called Lost Trail Extension. From there we followed the Ferret Trail around the west side of Bear Hill Pond. After 13 miles of riding, we would finally hit our first section of single track in Bear Brook State Park!



The first trail we hit was the Ledges Hedgehog trail. An excellent, scenic trail through some incredible boulder fields. Seriously technical however. Lots of stone steps to ascend and descend. From there we took a dreadful trail called the Lowland Trail ( I think). Lots of blowdowns, and huge sections completely submerged. It was wet, slow and not much of anything. It eventually brought us around Hayes Marsh (about 15 miles of riding).
At Hayes Marsh we decided on the Carr Ridge Trail. After looking at the map, we came up with a rough plan to head north until we hit the Bear Brook Trail, and then head southeast to our car on Podunk Rd. Up and over what I would guess was Carr Ridge. A somewhat technical but excellent single track trail. The descent was a nicely flowing, fast switchback ride all the way down to the Bear Brook Trail.
Another excellent trail, and as the name implies, the trail followed right along Bear Brook. I think we got off trail a few times near the water but we eventually would pick it up again and continued all the way to the hiker/biker lot on Podunk Rd. It was a solid 2 miles of nice single track riding.
In total we rode for 2hrs 40 minutes, covering roughly 18 miles. This was my first time into Bear Brook and I can't wait to go back!