Mt Washington Winter Run

I've run up the Mt Washington Auto Road 27 times.  Twenty-five of those times were during the road race (June) and the other two were "training runs" in August.  I've never been up in winter.  Kevin Tilton has been up the road MANY times.  He sent me an email earlier this month stating "time to get off our asses and actually do this run". We had talked about a winter run before but never got it together.  This weekend we'd do it!

I had Friday off due the Northfield race (which was cancelled due to lack of snow) so off I went.  It was snowing/raining the entire 3 hour drive.  We got to the start at 930 and picked up our free snowshoe pass.  I carried a bunch of extra clothes and snowshoes and some gels.  Kevin carried about the same.  It was 26 degrees and snowy when we started.  The summit was 7 degrees with winds around 20 mph and freezing fog.

We took our time just enjoying being outside and chatting the whole climb.  KT noted a few times that if it looked bad we'd bail.  It never got really bad.  The worst of it was the icy footing but microspikes kept us going.  At 3 miles Kevin took off a layer and I got some pictures.

 

 At 4 miles the wind picked up as we got above tree-line.  We also got our only views of the day.

The weather cooperated even though it was a bit chilly with the wind.  There were a few spots of bare road and a few extended spots of ice but mostly it was okay.

 We thought we'd get in trouble when the snow-cat stopped and the driver got out.  But he waived and yelled "Hi Kevin!".  Too funny!

We reached the top in 1:55 and spent about 5 minutes on top before heading on down (as we were getting cold).  Back down in 1:20.  Great day!

New Hampshire Town Bagging

Kevin Tilton and I are both working on running in every town in New Hampshire (along with about 100 other lists each of us is working on), so this weekend we met up and did some “town bagging”.

I came up with an aggressive agenda that included four runs in 10 towns.  It was aggressive because I’ve only been running for a month and it would be a 17 mile day.

We met up at 6:30am in North Conway and headed north to our first destination.  We reached the Imp trail at 7:30am in just about ideal conditions.  Temperatures were in the mid-40’s and the sky was clear.  Our goal was the “Imp Face” a 2.2 climb gaining 1,900’ and giving us a run in both Martin’s Location and Bean’s Purchase.

We headed into the woods as it was just getting light enough to run.  The trail was pretty nice although a bit difficult to watch were you were stepping due to all of the downed leaves.  The climb went by quicker than I expected and we reached the top where there was a great view of some of the Presidential range right in front of us.  The view of the Auto Road was especially interesting to me, I’m used to seeing it up close (way up close).

We took a couple of pictures then loped back down to the car.

Imp Face - up 37:07, on top 2:17, down 35:07  = Total 1:14:32

Then it was off to Jefferson Notch road where we got in an easy 4 mile run (33:15) that got us the towns of Randolph, Jefferson, and Low&Burbanks.  Jefferson Notch road was commissioned in 1903 as the highest maintained New Hampshire state throughway.  We only had to climb/descend 300’ of it (at this point).

30 minutes later we were over the top of the road and parked at the aptly named Boundary Line trail.  This short trail (.9) is one that KT hadn’t run on before so we modified our run and did a neat 4 mile loop.  The first .9 was on the Boundary trail which was very interesting and very green.  It really looked more like a trail in the Pacific Northwest.

From the trail we dropped down Base station road as we ran through Chandlers Purchase and Beans Grant.  Most of the 600’ of climb we had during this run was climbing back to the car on Jefferson Notch road.  The four miles took us 43:03.

Our fourth and final run of the day (11:30 am) was the Davis Path up/down Mt Crawford.  This would get us the towns of Harts Location and Hadley’s Purchase.  I was already pretty tired from the previous 12+ miles and 2,600’ of climb and descent.  The trail was in great shape and we ran into a few groups of hikers who offered encouragement.

We reached the top in 41 minutes and then soaked in the scenery.  The view was impressive!  Then we picked our way carefully back to the bottom.

4.4 m Mt Crawford (2100’ climb/descent) = up 41:30, on top 6:52, down 38:48 – 1:27:10

What a great day to be out in the White Mountains bagging towns and visiting peaks!

Whitaker Woods snowshoe race

I headed up to North Conway this weekend for the 3rd annual Whitaker Woods 4 mile snowshoe race.  I got there a little early and it was snowing as I drove through N. Conway.  I met up with Kevin Tilton and he headed off to get things set up as I went out on the course with Double-J to finish marking the course.

KT in the snowy parking lot

We blocked off some trails that hadn't been closed off (they ski at night there) and it was a good chance to check out the course and catch up with JJ.  45 minutes later we'd finished and I switched into race gear.  I still had 30 minutes so I got in another 3 miles with some strides.  I bumped into a lot of familiar faces out on the course, it's great to see the same people come back every year.

Kevin gave some last minute instructions and we were off. He mentioned it'd be fast out there and he was right, the field sprinted out!  I was a bit surprised how fast everyone went off the line for a four mile race with plenty of room to pass.  It took me 200m to move up into third and I didn't catch Chris Dunn until nearly 3/4 of a mile.  Double-J was already 30-40 seconds up and disappeared from sight.  Chris hung tough and I didn't get a step on him until just after the mile.

I felt like I was working quite hard but at 3 miles there is an out/back type section and I could see that Chris and Danny Ferreira were close behind.  I gave all I had and hit the finish line more than two minutes after JJ in 29:10.  This years course was a little longer than last year I when I ran 28:40 (in 2011 I ran 29:39)...but it is always hard to compare snowshoe races.  The conditions were very fast!    I headed out for a very slow 2 mile warm-down and hit the road.   Kevin did a great job putting on a fantastic race, the indoor facilities are a major plus.

Place	Time	Name		Sex	Age	Club	Points
1	26:56	Jim	Johnson	M	35	BAA/Dion	100.00
2	29:10	Dave	Dunham	M	48	CMS/Atlas	92.34
3	29:57	Danny	Ferreira	M	36	acidotic	89.93
4	30:00	Chris	Dunn	M	44	acidotic	89.78
5	30:30	Ryan	Welts	M	32	acidotic	88.31
6	31:10	Phil	Erwin	M	45	acidotic	86.42
7	31:16	Humzu	Jafferji	M	24		86.14
8	31:48	Chuck	Hazzard	M	52	Trail Monster Running	84.70
9	31:56	Amber	Ferreira	F	30	acidotic	84.34
10	32:02	Jason	Massa	M	45	acidotic	84.08

Back to the Mountains

Teammate Kevin Tilton proposed a run up the Auto Road for this weekend, which isn't all that unsual as he runs up the road quite a bit.  The unusual part would be that the run would be timed to reach the summit at sunrise.  I was "all in" for this run as soon as I got the invite.

I headed up on Thursday right after work and met Kevin at the trailhead for the Kearsarge North trail.  I've always wanted to run up this mountain, it has a lookout tower on top and I love visiting towers.  We hit the trail a little after 5:30.

We had a lot of fun catching up on multiple topics and Kevin described various areas of the trail on the way up.  He's run this trail many times but thankfully has not grown tired of it.  We climbed 2,700' over the 3.1 miles in 48:57, then took a 10 minute break on the summit to check out the views.

We took our time coming down, especially on the very technical rocky sections and got back to the parking lot just after sunset.  It took us 50:05 to navigate the descent.  Then it was off to Kevin's for pizza and a few hours of sleep.

We were up at 3:30am and off to Mt Washington by 3:45 (with a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts).  Our plan was to run easily up and down, but the weather station was predicting winds up to 100 mph on the top.  We figured we'd go to tree-line (about 4m) and see how things were and if we had to we'd bail and run up Wildcat.  We had a nice full moon and crazy warm temps of 70 at the base and 50 at the summit at 4:30 am as we headed out/up.

It was windy but not brutal below tree line and we reached four miles in 48:34 clicking off miles just over 12 minutes.  It was a little slower than I thought we'd run but it was VERY early in the day and it was windy.  It didn't seem all that bad above tree-line so we continued on.  Hitting miles of: 12:16, 12:25, 11:51, and 7:25 for the last .7 which got us to the top in 1:32:33.  We were greeted by sustained winds in the 55-70 mph range and gusts over 80 mph.  We also arrived just in time for sunrise.

We only spent 10 minutes on the summit, it was chilly in the wind, then headed down.  We were pretty consistent on the descent: 710/856/900/900/842/855/855/833 = 1:09:57.  We were done for the day and it wasn't even 7:30am!  I finished out the day (and the month) with a nice relaxing 3 mile run.  Great start to the LONG weekend!

Loon Mountain race

Loon Mountain Race

I was really looking forward to Loon Mountain this year after having to miss it last year with my calf injury.  Richard Bolt, Paul Kirsch and I had designed the course back in 2006 and this would be my sixth time racing it.  I have a pretty good mental picture of the course which is a definite advantage over the difficult (and varied) terrain on Loon.  There was no doubt that the women’s field would be good as Loon was hosting the U.S. team qualifier, but it was anyone’s guess how the men’s field would be.  I bumped into top master Mike Slinskey who’d driven 5 hours from New York to give Loon a try.  He was preparing for the Escarpment trail race and figured Loon would give him a good test.  Right after seeing Mike I saw Mark Mayall another top master.  Mayall can beat me by a minute in a road 5k and showed he could climb running a 1:09 last year at Mt Washington.  Along with Todd Callaghan, who is leading the master’s category in the mountain series, there was a solid master’s field on hand.

A big group of CMS guys and a couple of others headed out for a flat 3 mile warm-up.  It was already pretty warm but the humidity was reasonably low.  Jim Johnson was uncharacteristically quiet about any ailments, which probably boded well for his race.  I thought that fellow CMS runners Kevin Tilton and Ross Krause might give him a race.  Judson Cake and some fast younger runners (who were unproven on a mountain course) could also be in the mix.  We finished warming up and found out that the start was delayed by 15 minutes due to a record turnout at registration.  The women’s elite race went off on time at 9:15 so I used the extra time to jog over to catch them starting then cut across to see them go through the mile. 

Feeling good during the warm-up

It wasn’t surprising that most of the field was still in contention at that point, the first mile had very little serious climb in it.  I headed out for some more running and some strides, and just before the start I dunked my singlet in the river and soaked my head.

I lined up next to teammates Kevin Tilton and Dave Lapierre and was a bit shocked by the size of the field (over 250), but with the wide dirt parking lot we’d have plenty of room to sort things out.  We were off like a shot and Kevin and I weren’t in the top 25.  He noted something like ‘I went to a mountain race and a road race broke out’.  I wasn’t too worried; people always bust a nut in the first mile of this race and pay for it dearly later on.  Mostly I worked on staying on my feet through the first four 90 degree turns during the first half-mile before we hit the cat track and the first little climb.  I focused on cutting tangents (running the shortest possible route) and keeping some familiar faces in sight.  Even on a good day at Loon I’d give up as much as 30 seconds in that first mile.  I hit the mile mark and the first serious climb in 6:21.  Anything under 6:30 is VERY fast for me.  I was surprised that the leaders were only 10-15 seconds ahead and I was in 16^th place at that point.

I latched on to Matt Veiga right after the mile.  We’d been closely matched at a couple of the mountain races earlier this year and once the climbing started we started reeling in some of the pack.  Teammate Sam Wood was one of the first guys we caught, he tried to latch on as we went by but we’d got a good rhythm going and pulled away.  By the water stop I’d pulled clear of Veiga and reeled in a couple of other guys.  The climb continued through 2 miles and I could see a line of runners ahead of me.  I hit the 2 mile mark in 15:04 (8:43), anything under 9:00 is a good time for me over that mile.  I was close to the top 10 by the 2 mile mark and worked hard on the slight downhill.  I was a bit surprised at how close I’d gotten to Kevin Tilton, but once we hit the really tough grass climb he motored.  I followed his lead and moved into the top 10 during that climb.  I was feeling pretty good and kept my eyes focused on Mayall, and further ahead Callaghan.  I was thinking if I could keep them close I might have a shot at them on the final kilometer (a 30% sustained climb on a double-black diamond ski slope).

I checked my watch as Callaghan and Cake hit the 3 mile mark 13 seconds up on me.  I ran the third mile in 8:47 which was a fast split for me.  I was still feeling good and three to four is one long grind, just my kind of running.  I reeled in Callaghan and Cake and got around Mayall.  On the longer straight parts I could see Ross Krause up ahead in 3^rd place, Tilton was 5-10 seconds ahead of me and he’d just caught the fourth place runner.  I worked my way up and by the four mile mark (9:54 – 33:46) I was in 5^th place closely trailing Kevin.  Now I just wanted to get down the final ½ mile of downhill without major damage then work that last climb.  I was pretty confident that no one behind me was going to catch me on that climb…but you never know.  I passed Kevin about half-way down and kept the tempo as fast as I could.  I knew Mayall wasn’t that far behind and I really wanted to hold the position I’d worked hard for.

Kevin did not fold; he worked his way back and went right by me on the Upper Walking Boss climb.  My legs were burning and I was starting to worry about my calves, the last thing I wanted was to re-injure myself…of course I also was in the heat of a race and didn’t want to give an inch.  I kept a steady (if slow) pace and didn’t walk at all (I’ve never walked on this course) and slowly gapped Kevin.  I could see Ross up ahead but knew he was not catchable.  I snuck a look back and it is amazing how close people seem when you are all “running” at over 13 minutes per mile.  I finished that kilometer in 8:43 and ended up finishing in fourth place in 46:20.  This was the first time the course finished at the top of North Peak so it is hard to compare to previous results.  My best for the 5.5 mile version of the course is 49:46, so I would have been about a minute under that had we continued to the other finish line.  I like the new version of the course with the uphill finish and wouldn’t mind if they kept it there for future races.

CMS had a good day with five in the top six, Jim Johnson won the race by a minute, Martin Tighe was top 50+ by nearly 2 minutes, and I took the top spot in the 40+.  The final race in the six race USATF NE mountain series will be the Ascutney hill climb on 07-22.

Pl   Time   Name            Age       Div        Club      Points

1    43:16  Jim Johnson    35         M2039   CMS      100.00

2    44:15  Kris Freeman   31         M2039               97.78

3    45:06  Ross Krause    32         M2039   CMS      95.93

4    46:20  Dave Dunham  48        M4059   CMS      93.38

5    46:33  Phil Kreycik     28         M2039               92.95

6    46:49  Kevin Tilton    30         M2039   CMS      92.42

7    47:13  Mark Mayall    40         M4059   NBB       91.63

8    47:32  Peter Gurney  23         M2039               91.02

9    48:06  Todd Callaghan 42      M4059   GCS       89.95

10   48:28  Judson Cake   34        M2039   Acidotic 89.27

11   49:09  Isaac St Martin 32       M2039   GCS       88.03

12   49:13  Tristan Williams26        M2039               87.91

13   49:17  Mike Slinskey  43         M4059               87.79

14   49:28  Matt Zanchi    22         M2039   Redmen             87.47

15   49:42  Matt Veiga     25         M2039               87.06

16   49:54  Tim Mahoney 32         M2039   CMS      86.71

18   51:09  Sam Wood     26         M2039   CMS      84.59

30   54:27  Martin Tighe   54         M4059   CMS      79.46

86   1:07:29 David Lapierre 48      M4059   CMS      64.11

148 1:20:00 Walt Kuklinski  63      M6099   CMS      54.08

Newton 10k - USATF NE championship

I took it pretty easy this week in anticipation of the tough competition at the 10k championships this week.  I dropped down to 80 miles for the week and did a shorter (8x400) workout midweek to get some turnover.  I felt sluggish all week, probably feeling the 10 mile Pack Monadnock race in my legs.  I went into the race planning to key off of Joe Shairs and some of the other top masters and see what happens.

Dave La, DQ, and I headed to the race a bit early so that we could drive the course and get some feel for what the race would be like.  It looked "rolling" but rolling UP through 5k then rolling DOWN to the finish.  It also looked like it'd be a warm day with the bright sun and climbing temperatures.  We hooked up with some CMS teammates (Joe, Jim, and Martin) and headed out for an easy 3 mile warm-up.  After that I changed into race gear and headed out for another mile with some strides.  I felt a bit tired and just the right amount of nervous.  I hit the line with 5 minutes to go and staked out a spot at the front.

I tried to relax in the first mile as many runners blew by me, my plan of running with Joe was over by 400 meters in.  It just felt too fast for me.  I was hoping to run right around 5:30 per mile and was happy with a 5:24 opening mile.  The rolling nature of the course had me slowing for miles 2 and 3 but I was also reeling in some runners.  I caught Joe and Dmitri Drozdov (SRR) just before the 3 mile mark.  Dmitri asked what the time was and I told him (16:40).  Joe noted "I'm toast, go".  I could see Wayne Levy (BAA) not too far ahead and he is leading the grand prix in the 45-49 age group.  I hoped to reel him in on some of the downhill running.

I never really shook Joe and never really reeled in Wayne.  Basically I stayed in the same place from 5k on.  I didn't feel great when we hit the 5m mark (in a personal best 27:46) but I gave everything I had.  I caught Kevin Tilton who was having a rough day and could see Joe closing on Al Bernier who was also having a tough go of it.  I kicked for all I had, knowing it'd be close to my PR and I slid by Kevin in the last 50 meters before the finish.  I ended up taking 9th in the masters with a new PR of 34:27.2 which is a scant one second faster than what I ran at the NE championships (James Joyce 10k) last year.

I'll take it easy again this week and not even hit the track.  All the training is in the bank now and I just need to get to the top of Mt Washington without messing up my calf and I'll be happy!

Splits: 5:25 11:02 (5:37) 16:40 (5:38) 22:22 (5:42) 27:46 (5:24) 34:27 (6:41)

Results:

      1    RUBEN SANCA              DRACUT, MA  MA        810    24   M       1 Top Fin  30:15.4     

      2    KEVIN JOHNSON            HANOVER  NH          8523    23   M       2 Top Fin  30:16.3     

      3    NATE JENKINS       CMS   ANDOVER  MA           866    31   M       3 Top Fin  31:12.2     

CMS finishers

     25    KEVIN GORMAN             NORWOOD  MA           863    35   M       6 30-39    33:40.9     

     26    GREG HAMMETT             CHESTERFIELD  NH      864    34   M       7 30-39    33:43.4     

     38    ALAN BERNIER             PROVIDENCE  RI        861    37   M       9 30-39    34:15.3     

     39    JOE SHAIRS               PEABODY  MA           869    44   M       8 40-49    34:16.4     

     43    DAVE DUNHAM              BRADFORD  MA          862    48   M       9 40-49    34:27.2     

     44    KEVIN TILTON             NORTH CONWAY  NH      870    30   M      11 30-39    34:27.1     

     57    JIM PAWLICKI             LYNN  MA              867    37   M      17 30-39    35:22.3     

     79    JASON PORTER             BEDFORD  NH           875    42   M      17 40-49    36:36.0     

     94    MARTIN TIGHE             PROVIDENCE  RI        871    54   M       9 50-59    37:24.6     

    134    DAVE MINGORI             CHARLTON  MA          745    45   M      30 40-49    38:54.8     

    179    DAVID QUINTAL            SALEM  NH             874    49   M      44 40-49    41:00.7     

    246    DAVID LAPIERRE           CHELMSFORD  MA        159    48   M      58 40-49    43:09.8     

Top 10 masters

      7    JOSEPH KOECH             CHELMSFORD  MA       8662    43   M       1 40-49     32:36.2     

     20    JOSEPH NAVAS             NORTH EASTHAM  MA    8595    41   M       2 40-49     33:19.4     

     23    KENT LEMME               PITTSFIELD  MA        683    45   M       3 40-49     33:31.5     

     24    GREG PUTNAM       CMS    STONEHAM  MA          868    42   M       4 40-49     33:36.1     

     31    DMITRY DROZDOV           LINCOLN  MA          8710    40   M       5 40-49     33:59.8     

     32    TODD CALLAGHAN           BEVERLY  MA           885    42   M       6 40-49     34:02.7     

     36    WAYNE LEVY               WABAN  MA            8532    46   M       7 40-49     34:10.0     

     39    JOE SHAIRS     CMS       PEABODY  MA           869    44   M       8 40-49     34:16.4     

     43    DAVE DUNHAM    CMS       BRADFORD  MA          862    48   M       9 40-49     34:27.2     

     54    JONATHAN MAY             CHARLESTOWN  MA      8649    43   M      10 40-49     35:02.2