tread dread

I really like waking to a fresh blanket of snow, EXCEPT when it foils our 6am planned trail run - for the second time in one week no less! It was just too slippery on the roads for everyone to risk the early drive to the trailhead. Once I got the news, I certainly could have hit the roads running right from my front door. It was so pretty out there with the snow falling. But, then I heard the snowplow and then I smelled the coffee brewing and then I remembered my non-running friends tsk-tsk-ing me for running on the roads when it's snowing and huge snowbanks limit visibility. So I told myself I would do the dreaded Treadmill at lunchtime. Ugh.

After 3 miles I could not take it anymore. Despite ESPN on the TV right in front of me, AND my music blasting from my Shuffle, I was in serious jeopardy of calling it a day. Out of desperation for some variety, I instead pushed the incline to 9, then 10, then 11.5% and slowed my pace WAY down to a mere light jog and then just to a walk. I did this for 1 mile thinking this was the "stairway to heaven" steps on the TrapRock route that we will do 3 times. I'm sure the actual steps are much worse (I have not seen them yet), but you convince yourself of lots of things if it will get you through the Tread dread.

After "the hill", I ran the last mile easy with my Shuffle blasting away until Jennifer Hudson got my arms moving and I hit the emergency STOP button. I'm pretty sure I have a half mile left. My lunch hour was almost up at this point, but it's hard to cut a workout short when you are so close to your target and you have direct feedback telling you so. So, I turned everything on again and finished the .5 miles for a total of 5 miles...even...not a step more.

a "dubbel" of sorts

(by fellow runner Anne Manning)

Workout: Tradition Run, Meriden (Hubbard Park; auto road to Castle Craig)

I started early and alone. It was cold and the wind was surprisingly fierce off the water. I was wishing I had my gator. Once I hit the hill, I knew I would be very warm though and sure enough, half way up, my gloves were off.

I made it the whole way without stopping, which was victory for me. I really wanted to walk. After passing one walker early on, I never saw another person. Funny thing though...the last part up to the Castle was not plowed and instead the route went up to the satellite towers (antennae's?). When I saw this, my first thought was, is this going to be easier? And, then my second thought, what if this is HARDER!!! I just kept going, and it went up and up to a parking lot where I could go no further. It was empty, but neatly plowed. I then started back down and decided to take a closer look at the trail up the Castle. Turns out people had been on it and it was packed down well enough to jog on it. So, I took it. I wanted to get to the Castle, which I did, and it was covered in ice. Carefully I walked around it, got my views in (awesome) and headed back down. That's my kind of Dubbel...two peaks without all the work (I've named this after the delicious beer we had at Mikro).

After I got to my car I had energy and it was beautiful out, so I grabbed my Yaktrax to check out the other trail we do sometimes. I figured I would walk/run it, which I did. I walked all the hills. It was very quiet in there except for the ice noises from the trees, and my breathing. I saw a few deer, below me (I was on that bridge in the woods looking down), which was cool....

A successful Tradition run. Only thing better would have been having my friends there with me!

run. done.

Workout: 4 miles; roads
Date: Sunday, January 23
Location: Cheshire (my neighborhood); flat, with one hill (Mt. Sanford Rd.)
Time: noon
Folks: Sasha; me
Temp: 19 degrees

Rose from my bed this morning with all of the agility and verve of an eighty-year-old woman. Even before yesterday’s run stiffened my quads, my back and forearms were aching from the grunt-inducing effort of digging our woodpiles out from under the ice-encrusted snow (I know: whine, whine, whine. I’ll stop.). And yesterday’s post-run workout was hauling, moving, and stacking (Bryan was kind enough to do the splitting, a task I’ve not yet mastered).

I’m not complaining; just trying to make myself feel a little better about today’s feeble run. I ran. It’s logged. Enough said.

all's well that ends in cider donuts

Workout: 13.7 miles; roads (hills, hills, hills)
Date: Saturday, January 22
Time: 7:00am
Location: Lyman Orchards, Middlefield
Temp: 4 degrees at start; 11 degrees at finish
Folks: Anne, Pete, Mirela, me; Kevin and Bill V. for second loop

The next best thing to a trail workout. We met at the Apple Barrel and started out on the (mostly) quiet rural roads of Middlefield. Pete and Anne discussed the possibility of running the Meriden Tradition run today, which follows the auto road up Mt. Meriden to Castle Craig. As I write this, I’m wondering whether they ran, and how their quads held up after yesterday’s hill-atious adventure.

Our first loop was about 6.5 or 7 miles, I think. Back at the parking lot, Mirela and I had a good laugh over our frosty hair. Mirela, whose knee was causing her some trouble, said farewell to us there, and we welcomed Kevin M. and Bill V., who proceeded to lead us on a gut-busting (but very scenic) workout. As we passed the orchards near Powder Ridge, the roads became more slippery, and we had to work twice as hard to gain distance. At that point, I began to mull over breakfast possibilities: donut? Fritter? Egg sandwich? All of the above? There’s a reason we end our run at one of the finest bakeries in central Connecticut.

And as always, it was worth it. Even if breakfast resulted in what KM called a “fitness net negative,” the soft, warm, glazed cider donut was a satisfying reward. And the coffee wasn’t bad, either.

wednesday: in the lair of the nazgul

Workout: 5 mi run
Location: DeDominicis Trail, Cheshire (left from my house)
Temp: 34 degrees
Time: 10:45 a.m.
Folks: me, Sasha
Conditions: Rain; deep, crusty snow; some ice

Arms and back slightly sore from yesterday’s workout: shoveling the driveway.

An intense case of cabin fever helped steer me away from the elliptical at the Y and out into the rain. I decided to see what the trails had to offer, though I was quite sure I would be doing more post-holing than running. I strapped on the Yaktrax in my driveway, as the roads leading to the trail (about a mile from my house) were pretty slick. I was, as usual, overdressed, and wearing the wrong kind of gaiters. These ones have no clip, so I can’t attach them to my shoelaces. So, really, all they provided was added weight.

Sasha, overjoyed to be joining me on a run, was clearly disconcerted when we arrived at the trailhead and immediately began breaking through snow. Deep powder she can handle, but this stuff, this packed slushy with a layer of ice on top, was tough on her little paws, as well as on my shins (I was reminded of a day last year or the year before when Fran and I ran this same trail, in similar conditions, and I arrived home with scratches and bruises all over my legs).

The two of us were working hard. I decided we would only go as far as the stream, cutting short our usual loop by at least a mile, perhaps more. I was sure the conditions would compensate for the lack of mileage (my quads and calves were certainly burning more than they do on an average run). Before we arrived at the turnaround point, however, we were stopped short by the screams of what sounded like Nazgul, the creepy winged beasts from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. I have a history of attracting these creatures. The screams, as it turned out, were coming from two very low-flying red-tailed hawks, who seemed not to want company. We decided to turn back a little early. “We’re friendly!” I called to the hawks, picking up a branch as one flew overhead—just in case. “We’re leaving!”

Going back was like swimming upstream. I could still hear the Nazgul off in the distance, which put a little hop in my step, but I was by no means fleet. About .5 miles from the trailhead, I noticed, with some irritation, that I had lost one of my Yaktrax. I stop, pondered for a minute, then turned back. I’ve had these Yaktrax for at least eight years, and they have served me well; I had to go back. “C’mon, Sash,” I called to the dog. She sat down and stared at me. I started jogging. She continued to stare. She had a point. Poor girl is arthritic, and had already given more than she had. I decided I’d go back tomorrow, on snowshoes, and look for the lost Yaktrax. Maybe the Nazgul would have returned to Mordor by then.

Sasha signaled her approval by running in the direction of the trailhead. As we approached, I saw, at the entrance, my Yaktrak. I’d lost it right at the start of the run. Crisis averted.

Tonight’s workout: basketball!

saturday morning snowshoe

Workout: 2 hour snowshoe
Location: Brooksvale Park, Hamden, CT
Time: 7:45a.m.
Folks: Anne, Fran, me
Conditions: Packed powder, fresh powder, rolling
Temp: 10 degrees at start; 24 degrees at finish

The air felt almost balmy after Friday morning’s run—that is, until we had to strap our boots into our snowshoes. It took an unusually long time for our hands to warm up, and we had to stop at several points to pull our fingers into our mittens and generate some heat.

The trail had clearly been trod upon by snow-shoers and x-c skiers, but still we had to work, as the snow is that deep. We took turns leading. At the pipeline trail, the steepest portion of the course, the snow was untracked, and the workout was exactly what we’d been hoping for. I had been a little uneasy about substituting a snowshoe for a long run, but a snow-lover would be a lunatic to pass up the opportunity to play in all of this powder. And my quads were beginning to feel the burn at the top of the hill. Only the slightest hint, I’m sure, of what I’ll be feeling after Traprock, but not a bad training workout. Keep the snow coming!

frigid friday

Workout: 5 mile road run
Location: Wallingford (starting at Choate)
Folks: Fran, Karen, Craig, me
Time: 6:00am
Temp: Somewhere between -2 and 0 degrees at the start; 11 degrees at finish

I haven’t spent much time running on the roads lately, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to run with some of my favorite runners. Yesterday, I took the kids sledding at Brooksvale, and the trails were calling my name. I decided then that I would ski instead of run today; however, Bryan had other plans for me. A car part needs to be picked up in Milford, and since I’m on break until the 24th and have spent much of my non-kid time playing in the snow, I could not, in good conscience, say no. So, I sucked it up, set my alarm, and joined the regular Friday crew at Choate for what turned out to be an enjoyable road run.

Frigid this morning, and yet I still managed to over-dress (though my hands could have used a thicker layer). Wish someone had brought a camera to capture our faces at the end: Craig joked that, with our white hair and frozen “goatees”(thanks, Jack Frost, for highlighting all of our facial hair), we looked as we would in twenty or thirty years. When I got back to my car, it took my hands at least a minute to warm up to the point where I could actually turn the key and open the door. The ignition posed another problem. I was reminded of when I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, and would get out of work at 10 or 11pm; the temperature gauge in my rusty Subaru would often read something like -25. In the short walk from the door of Alaska Children’s Services to my car, my hands would freeze enough to make starting the car an issue (I was never well-off enough to afford a car with a remote starter).

At the conclusion of the run, Fran exclaimed, “I love that we’re all just willing to go out and run in this!” As difficult as it was to get up at 5:20 this morning, I’m grateful once again for my fellow lunatics.

snowstepping

Workout: Road run; 3.7 miles with Sasha
Time: 3:30pm
Conditions: Snow, some ice. A little windy. About 30 degrees.
Additional workout: dips (3x20); push-ups (3x15); abs (100 crunches).
(Can I count the hour I spent moving and stacking firewood? I say, why not?)

Still sore from the spill I took in the driveway yesterday (yes, I ran on ice in Sleeping Giant and came out unscathed, but failed to survive the conditions in my own driveway). When I woke up this morning, I had trouble turning my head. I had planned to do yoga (Rodney Yee’s Yoga for Back Care) instead of running, but couldn’t resist a post-blizzard trot. So it was brief, but thrilling to see the neighborhood transformed by the snow.

another tuesday morning

Location: Sleeping Giant, Chestnut Grove trailhead
Time: 6am
Folks: Anne, Mirela, me
Temp: 18 degrees at start; 24 degrees at finish
Duration: 1hr, 10 minutes

My favorite run of the week: the Tuesday trail adventure. This morning, I was suffering from the effects of bad decision making, in the form of a post-dinner cup of coffee the previous evening at It’s Only Natural in Middletown. It just went sooo well with the coconut cake I shared with my friend Sarah (a little calorie-loading in preparation for the run). Consequently, I had about three hours of sleep. On the plus side, it was a semi-productive insomnia: I cruised through five or six more songs in my piano lesson book (another New Year’s Resolution), and then wound down with a few chapters of Sense and Sensibility.

As usual, we began our run in the dark. Mirela was alert, listening for signs of the Quinnipiac Valley’s most fearsome forest creature: the dreaded Giant Chipmunk. All three of us were sore at the start: Anne from Monday boot camp; Mirela from doing squats at the gym; me from skiing at Brooksvale Park. My quads were groaning after the first or second ascent. The trail conditions were unsympathetic, at least in the beginning: running in the lightly-treaded powder was a bit like running in sand, and we slipped and slid in spite of our Yaktrax (or, in Mirela’s case, screws). We did our usual loop: violet-red triangle-yellow. Most of the course was packed powder and surprisingly runnable. We did encounter some ice on the yellow trail, after climbing the grueling staircases. We were rewarded soon afterward, however, by a deep orange and red sky to the west, and pinkish clouds to the east. Just opposite was the slightly obscene light show that is Quinnipiac University. Aren’t the students on break? So why are the dorms lit up like Giants Stadium?

Daylight was fully upon us as we approached the end of the trail. I was overjoyed to see my car (Bryan’s car, actually) still sitting in the spot where I had parked it. About two miles back, I’d had a flashback to the time I had emerged from the woods on this very trail to find that my car (Bryan’s car, actually) had vanished (it had rolled backwards into a small grove of trees on the side of the road. Who knew the emergency break doesn’t always engage in those things?).

The three of us bumped fists in acknowledgment of a tough but satisfying aerobic workout. Hail to the trail.

and so it begins. . . .

January marks the start of my training for the Traprock 50k Trail Race, which will be run (and I use the term "run" loosely) in Penwood State Park (Bloomfield, CT) in April. This will be my first (and possibly my last!) 50k. Though it's "only" about 5 miles longer than a marathon, somehow the idea feels a lot more daunting (we don't usually speak of marathons in terms of kilometers, at least not here in the U.S., so maybe it's because "50" is a lot scarier than "26.2").

I plan to use this blog as my training log, and once I have had the chance to familiarize myself with the dashboard (yes, I should have a working knowledge of the controls, as I've been writing at cheshirecatsunflowers.blogspot.com for three years, but as anyone can see, I'm a low-tech girl, I'm hoping that others will post their training joys, setbacks, accomplishments, and miseries.

At present, I have two training partners--Mirela and Anne--and I hope I can coerce them into sharing their pain, jubilation, and wit on this blog as well.

This past Saturday, our first training run at Penwood was postponed due to the storm. So, we embarked on separate activities: Anne and Mirela snowshoed at Braemore Preserve in Guilford, while I took Sasha out for a 2-hour cross-country ski tour at Brooksvale Park in Hamden. Lots of fresh powder! I had to break trail for about half the distance; it felt a bit like skiing with ankle-weights. The fresh powder made climbing hills easier, but the descent wasn't quite as thrilling.

Today's ski was quite the opposite. The snow was packed and slick, which made the climbing difficult and exhausting, but coming down was a joyride. I haven't seen Sasha run that fast in at least three years.

More snow is predicted for Tuesday/Wednesday. Bring it on! I love the full-body workout of backcountry skiing, but even more than that is the blissful quiet of Brooksvale's back trails.