Another week is in the books in April a month that has had summer like temperatures with constant Fire Warnings posted by NOAA through the last two weeks. Trail conditions in the Blue Hills Reservation have been super dry and with that slippery(?). Yes slippery, pine needles and leaves are brittle as can be and with everything so dry everything is loose. It is noticeable during an ascent it is no big deal but have not noticed that in the past couple of years.
Looking back on the week the first half was normal, except that there were no hill repeats (resting) due to the the TARC DRB 50k on Sunday 4/15. This is a great event if you want grass roots. Couple of notes on this "race", no entry fee, quasi self supported, course not marked but there is a course map. Having the Reservation as my training grounds I know the course. The most difficult part of the course is the Blue Sky Line Trail which has boulders, slick rock, loose rock, steep 20-30 foot drops and classic Northeast dagger rocks that stick out of the ground. The course is mostly runnable but with a touch over 5k vertical in 32ish miles there are sections you end up power walking.
Mark, Chris and I aka Wolf Pack ran together for 29 of the miles. During those miles we stopped at each water stations 7 I believe in total to fill water bottles and take food when available. With Mark and Chris only knowing 45-50% of the course I did the navigation during all of the course. 2 guys took off ahead of us while we stopped for nature breaks and to fill water bottles. We hunted and drop one of the guys on the Sky Line Trail heading Northwest and would not hunt and drop the other until the backside of the yellow triangle heading to Observatory Road on a nice little climb. We did have two tumbles (will not mention who) but not myself or Chris on the Blue Sky Line trail and Green section of the course. Besides cuts, gashes and dirt nothing was broken or sticking out of the skin. Besides the tumbles everything else went well, my stomach was having issues, nothing new with the heat but I was able to deal and push through. During the race my energy levels were good I took 7 gels, 3 Vegan Cookies, 3 slices of oranges and 1 Clif Bar Mini. Maybe too much gel, but I didn't have any "lows" during the race. Hydration was good Hammer Fizz Tabs and S-Caps and I used two hand held bottles for a majority of the race except for the first 14 miles.
I definitely felt stronger than I did last year and did more running I believe than I did last year as my face was much faster and took close to 28 minutes off of my time from 2011. Having Mark and Chris there definitely helped with pushing the pace. I think Chris could have done it 20 minutes faster as he was still running some of the uphills towards the end that I was power walking. As we approach some of the last hills Chris and I were together and descended the last final descent together, but Chris had another gear or two on the final lap around Hougtons Pond and I couldn't stay with him. We finished in 1 minute increments Chris 5:30, myself 5:31 and Mark 5:32 (with chest cold).
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Totals for the week:
63.68 miles of trail running
6,853 vertical feet
10:38:45 time on feet
Looking ahead to the week of 4/16 going to train as normal hope to get a little over 65 miles in with two days of core strength and then look to have a quasi taper ahead of the first big test of the year on April 28th with Walter at CPTR.
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