Friday, August 14, 2009

vacation all I STILL ever wanted

Ok, coming up for air a bit! Loren and I have been on vacation as I mentioned. We went up to the Presidential mountains in NH to hit the high point of the state, Mt Washington. While we were there, we tagged Mt Jefferson too. You can check out some pictures here. Before that, however, my friend Diane told us running the Bridge to Flowers 10k would be a fun way to kick off our vacation. Please note: Diane did NOT run. I like doing races out of NYC. They're usually smaller and obviously something different. Ya know, different like a hill in mile 3 that gains 400 feet in .75 of a mile. Yea, that's fun. Actually, this race had a bit of everything, some easy hills in the first few miles, followed by that MONSTER which most people actually do walk up most of, which then turns into a dirt road as you go down hill, then you hit some grass, then some mostly downhill rollers to the end. Very pretty and pretty challenging. To give you an idea about that hill, I ran my first 2 miles in like 7:15-7:30 pace. Mile 3 was 10:30. What followed was me totally high tailing it to break 50 minutes. I came in in 49:06. Loren ran pretty well, leaving me behind in mile 1 and finishing in 45:57. One thing I'm not crazy about for this race is the age groupings: 20-39 then 5 years after that!
Big difference from 20 to 39! (I'm 38). Loren was 18th outa 150, I was 32nd.
So then we were off for a few days to hike. No running. 2 mountain peaks, 1 over 6000', one about 5700'. Obviously no running. 
I ran yesterday which let's see...was Thurs for the first time since Sat. That's a lot of time off for me. Loren and I did an easy 5. It felt sluggish. My heel hurt a bit after. I haven't been staying on top of my stretching during this trip like I should. Obviously I'm on vacation and was still very very active so I should be fine. I did wake up this morning thinking I had gotten a little off track. I'm hoping to get back on track tomorrow when I go for my long run. Distance not yet determined. I'm still in Western MA, dog sitting for Diane who did not run the 10k. (Hi Diane).
Next week, I'm going to do a week long stained glass class up here. I'm already looking forward to getting up early and running on country roads. I just have to see what happens. A break was mostly likely good for me with this nagging pseudo injury. There's still lots o time.

4 comments:

Girl In Motion said...

Fun pictures! So jealous of the long-sleeves and pants you guys are wearing. Have a great rest of your vacation.

DogPound said...

after the run I just had, my kingdom for the need for a hat.

L.A. Runner said...

The scenery in the pics is REALLY beautiful! It looks like you had a great time, but I do have one short question. There's a picture of a little shed w/ a sleeping bag. Did you actually SLEEP there? Also, the old water pump... was that just for picture's sake, or was the water actually consumable? That thing looked pretty rusty.

DogPound said...

yes, we slept in the lean to. It has doors though most of them dont. And we had it to ourselves. Backpacking is very communal. It's totally common to have people just packed in there together. In this place, it's like that when there's snow and people come up to ski. And the water is the water we cooked with and drank, some of the best water I have ever tasted.