Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Triathlon time!

God I am bad at swimming.

I think 2m faster than last year, but it didn't feel any better. Tried to crawl, drank some lake, didn't drown. So, success?

This year, I didn't get lost! It helped to see the course beforehand. A lot. And look at a map. Went out 6m or so behind Dani and Cara, but they were both on slower bikes, and I was picking them up and laying them down pretty well (with tired legs, though). New tires, too! Nice riding, not too many cars, only so many corners to corner. Put lots of time on the field, but still behind the swimmers on the run.

Garmin decided elevation is no longer a thing.

Luck ran out here. Legs heavy. Maintained 7s, sort of. Passed Dani at least. Running in a bike bib is not something I'd want to do more than 20m.

Lincoln and Jess came up, sans airplane, but Lincoln wanted to go to the fly-in at the local airfield. I took them the long way, with lots of hills. Some long uphills, screamers of downhills, knew where I was. The airfield was surprisingly busy, and fun! Piper Cubs taking off in 400 feet and other such trickery. And food for sale.

On the way back my leg was cramping something awful so I could barely pull up the pedal. But then coming down the last hill down the gravel in to camp, feeling okay, my bike started oscillating wildly. I tried to keep control and somehow did: Jess was behind me and she said she'd never seen something like that. In the field I discovered that my back tire was pretty well shredded. Didn't pop, but the rubber was off in several places.

Glad to survive. Needed new tires. By 9 a.m. on a Sunday. And it was 5 on a Saturday. Where on god's green earth are you going to find a bike shop open on a Saturday evening? In Freeport, of course. So we went there on the way to Lincoln and Jess's, and I got new tires. Huzzah!

First bit of plan for day, spot sneakers at the top of Grafton Notch, spot the car at the bottom, and ski to the top. This went well. The road was repaved last year and has only one winter of decay (not a full-depth rebuild so already showing some cracks), so very rollerskiable up (and probably fine going down for advanced rollerskiers). Some sun and I went through some water, but didn't toast myself completely. Need to get more rollerskiing in; arms get sore!

So … best laid plans were as follows:

Run up Baldpate. If up in <1:30, keep going on Grafton Loop (seemed like reasonably runnable trail: new and not too steep) back to the car. Then go back to pick up rollerskis (the guy who was doing trail magic and probably could have carried them down and left by the time I had gotten up there) and drive back to Readfield and try to get there by 7 for dinner.

Sounds good.

Climb up Baldpate was nice. Steep, then running, then steep again, with lots of steps. I remembered how hard New England is. Just rocks and roots, rocks and roots, rocks and roots, Nothing buffed out. Up to the first peak, down some ladders, then across some slabby running bedrock, whee! And then up some steep slabs, but it was gorgeous, so no complaints. 55˚ and windy, perfect.

1:25 or so to the top, so them down Grafton Loop. Reasonably runnable, some parts more so. New Garmin still sucking, eating portions here and there, or at least not agreeing with trail sign mileage. I'm not that slow at downhills. A little behind pace but I was doing okay and followed some blazes along and across a stream, feeling decent.

Then the trail petered out at a campsite. But it was blue-blazed! This was the trail! You don't blaze side trails to campsites. So I kept looking for the trail. The map was little help. Every blue fork petered out. I finally realized that the trail maintainer must have had extra paint and blazed the side trails, which is Not Cool, and I backtracked and found the location where the main trail goes left through a swamp (doesn't look like much) with the side trail with a small, faded sign.

There went 15 minutes. Now I was going to be late.

Unless … on the map, which I'd picked up at the start, there was a snowmobile trail marked which went down to Newry. I parked my car in Newry. Snowmobile trails usually are followable, and this one traversed a contour, at least as marked, before looking like it went down a reasonable slope. How bad could it be. So I got there and followed the snowmobile trail to get out earlier.

Good macro decision. Bad micro decision. The map had little to do with reality. While there might be a sled trail, it doesn't follow the route shown on the map, but instead goes up a ways. If you're not going to get a shapefile and show where it goes, don't mark it on a map like it exists. Having arrows would be fine, but when you show it going down a hill and it instead goes up (passing near the "er" of Dresser Mountain on the map) just don't put it on. Put an arrow, or say "snowmobile crossing" or something. Don't lead people to think a trail goes somewhere it doesn't. And such a thick, black line. Not happy with this cartography.

Anyway, after exploring some not-trail snowmobile trails, I had two options: a) go back to the trail and complete the route by dark and be real late for dinner or b) orienteer my way out. Obviously I chose b! I looked and to my north there was a stream that would lead me to civilization (something called Step Falls, but which the map advertised had a trail along the falls). So I picked a reentrant and followed it down. When people get lost in the mountains in Maine, they seem not to do this, but picking a drainage and following it down, in New England, is a pretty good way to get found. Especially if you have a map. The reentrant pretty quickly became an intermittent stream, then a real stream, and in places a mossy stream. I scraped up my shin a bit (not wearing O pants) but mostly followed it successfully until I saw … people? Yes, people I'd passed earlier. I'd found the trail.

I guess I could have backtracked to the trail instead.

So now I was on the trail. Excellent. Down to the stream and then where it crossed the stream, I went down the stream. And this part was easy. Big, granite boulders, not much moss: must be a big freshet in the spring that keeps them bare and clean. So I rock-hopped for a while, and made pretty good time doing so. A couple times I went in to the (pretty thin) woods and decided that this was even bordering on Type 1 fun. As I neared the falls I saw big orange fencing. On my side, it said … nothing. I hadn't seen a sign since some boundary marking paint a mile back or so. But on the other side were all sorts of signs saying something about "if you go beyond this sign it will be considered trespass and Maine Wardens will come and get you." I think there's a song about that. (The paint may actually be legally-binding.)

I end-arounded the fence, crossed the ledgy falls, and ran down the trail. And then the road. At the parking lot, an evening runner said the portion of trail I'd skipped was very slow. So I probably made a good decision. And was back, including a stop for gas, by 7:05.

Hot and humid in the morning and then thunderstorms. The worst of the storms passed north and south but at least cooled it down a bit. Still very humid. I went out for a pre-dinner run with my mom trailing me on her bicycle (I had a head start). She was faster on the downs and caught me about 4 miles in, then went ahead on the downhill and flat bits again, and I caught and passed her on the long uphill.

Unfortunately this way around the lake ends with a mile-long downhill.

Jumped in the lake with my shirt on and probably raised the salinity of the water appreciably. Ready for humid to break.

Blueberry picking time! Paddled over with my dad in the canoe. 9 minutes across the lake. Pretty much no slower than driving around.

On the way back we went by the little island but all the berries were gone there.

Around the lake. Not feeling great and super sweaty, but at least cloudy and 70. Rain coming later.

No FDFs.

Up to Maine and dinner was served, so I tried to not eat too much (sort of succeeded?) and then ran, but not as much as hoped. Kept dinner down. Nice to run in waning light, ran with headlamp I turned on to be visible to cars. Then jump in lake.

With all the travel and weddings and such, it was a slow week.

But now begins me being in the same time zone for more than a day! Other than needing to get a job, I am pretty much home free. So training should (needs to) get better, since NY is only 2.5 months away.

Also, the dew point starting Thursday will be in the 40s. The 40s!

I have some decent base from some trails and long runs this summer. But I need to fill that in. Looking at getting at least one 20+ pavement run in per week, some rollerskiing, some trail running, and a lot more hours over the next two weeks.

Pisgah looks very nice on the calendar, too.

Figured on a hot day I should get my workout in early. And oh hey November Project. 75˚ for the run over, glad I had taken my frozen water bottle.

Fast-ish over, slow back.

Stairs, sprints, bear crawls, and me not understanding or following directions.