Wachusett Mountain

 I'd sort of lost my desire to do mountain races after the injury at Loon mountain in 2022, but Wachusett mountain has always been one of my favorite races.  The only other race I've done more times is Mt Washington.  My last Wachusett in 2022 went well and when RD Kim Gordon invited me to join the fun this year, I could not resist.  It was kind of funny when I went to the CMS page and found this.

I signed up for what I hoped would be my 25th time finishing this race (finishing a mountain race isn't as guaranteed as I used to think).  I was having a surprisingly good week, maybe coming off of the high of a decent race at the 5k championships.  The only major issue was my knee which has been very sore for a month.  I got an MRI Friday and will get the results next week.  I kept my mileage up and had a very fast Friday morning run, I went with how I felt which probably isn't a good idea the day before a race.  I'm enjoying training and trying to take things one day at a time.  If I feel good I try to just roll with it.  I'll have to watch for that if I want to have something in the tank on race day.

I headed off to Princeton/Westminster a little early and found one of the last shaded spots.  Parking is never an issue in the ski area parking lot.  Nearly 400 showed up which was just shy of the record.  It was already kind of warm at 8:30 when I headed out to warm-up.

It was great to see so many of my "mountain friends".  It was also great to see so many of my CMS teammates (including the women's team that was working the race).  I headed out on my own for a 3 mile warm-up.  As I did in 2022 I ran out/back over the last 1.5 of the course.  I felt pretty lousy and tried to put that down to nerves, climb, bad footing (the road had been redone and a lot of pointy rocks were put down), and the warm morning.  It wasn't hot like the previous days but 70s and sunny.  Fortunately a good portion of the course would be shaded.

I decided to not use carbon fiber shoes and went with road flats with a decent tread to help with footing on the dirt road (last 2.5 miles).  An easy jog to the start and it was time to go. 

I got a nice shout out from the RD about scoring the series and we were off.  Wow, it went out fast.  I had a good idea of what I needed to run for splits to take Matt Curran's 60+ CR (23:51).  Based on my 5k times compared to previous years I was looking for around 23:30.  As we passed the parking lot at 1/2 mile I counted 35 in front of me.  By the mile I was catching some of the quicker starters and feeling like I was in a groove.  The 8:02 was just a little slower than I'd hoped for.  I caught a couple of more guys as we moved into the Wachusett reservation.  That'd be it a 7:53 second mile had me right about where I wanted to be.  I was working with another guy and never lost focus on the guys in front of me.  I lost some steam over the last .85 miles and although I outkicked the guy I was with (for 25th place) I saw the course record tick away and I crossed the line 1 second slower than the record.

My goal for the descent was to not get hurt but also to run as hard as I could.  A lofty goal.  I lost a spot right away and then had 3 go by me the last half mile.  Mostly I was just glad to get down (relatively safely).  I ended up 22nd in the 10k as some chose to not continue racing after the summit.  The race has had this race within a race since 2015.  

After the race I went out on the course for an easy 2 miles.  It wasn't that easy as I went back out on the course.  I stuck around for the awards and picked up a nice CMS lunch bag for taking the 60+ title.

Pine mountain ascent

 I've only been up Pine Mountain once before (2018), so when Petey asked me to come up for a run I was all-in.  I arrived in Alton Bay about 30 minutes before sunrise and put in a flat (ish) 6 mile along the lake to warm up.  Warm-up indeed as it was 32 degrees when I started.  I caught sunrise just as I turned on my way back on the out/back run.  Then it was off to Petey's and a quick return to Lake W.  Pete dipped his hand in the lake and we were off.  40 minutes of enjoyable conversation and we were on the sunny summit checking out the view (you could see some of the White Mountains, Belknaps up close, Kearsarge (north and south) and Grand Monadnock in the distance.  We hiked the .8 down the other side of the mountain to Petey's house.  I closed out the day with an excellent and refreshing 2 hour ride.

USATF NE mountain series - Milestones

 The 2021 USATF NE mountain circuit kicked off last weekend at the Ascutney mountain race.  Here are the milestones (all-time series stats 1996-present) met.

 

Bruce Christensen finished his 30^th CONSECUTIVE series race.

Suzy West surpassed 4,000 points with 4002.76.

Corey Dowe reached 1,000 points with 1046.14.

Lisa Doucett had her 70^th finish.

Steve Brightman 30^th finish.

George Kocur 30^th finish.

Check out more.

Owls Head Mountain

 I’ve been hoping to go back to Owls Head as it is an interesting 4,000’ peak.  It is quite remote with a 7-8 mile approach which can mostly be run.  The final mile after the approach features over 1,500’ of climb.  I’ve done Owls Head three times with two successful visits to the summit (one time we bailed very close to the summit as my feet were getting VERY cold and darkness was quickly approaching).  D-la (David Lapierre) is working on the 4,000’ peaks in New Hampshire and we got to talking about this peak.  I’m always game for an adventure!  I’ve been stuck at 30 of the 4k peaks and hadn’t been up a new one since 2016.  This adventure wouldn’t get me another peak on the list but it’d be fun heading out into the wilderness again.

The day started on a scary note as I drove to Hooksett to meet up with Dave.  There were patches of black ice and a number of cars off the road.  We met up and the final 60 miles up route 93 took us nearly 2 hours as conditions did not improve.  We got to Lincoln Woods and found the parking lot coated with snow and only two other cars in the lot.  It was snowing and temps hovered around 30 degrees.  We quickly got our gear together and headed out.

There were no footprints in the couple of inches of snow on the ground as we made our way the first 2.5 miles on the old railroad bed (Lincoln Woods trail) and turned onto the Black Pond trail.  We had decided that we’d do the slightly shorter version of the standard approaches.  The Black Pond route involves about 1 mile of bushwhacking and notes from a few weeks ago noted the path was pretty easy to follow.  This would cut a little bit of mileage but more importantly it would cut five stream crossings including the sometimes difficult Franconia Brook crossing.  We’d still have three stream crossings but that were all (usually) do-able.

We trotted along for the first 2.5 miles getting warmed up and getting into a groove.  We had a couple of pauses on the Black Pond trail as it wasn’t entirely clear where the trail went, we were able to spot blazes that kept us on track.  The snow was still coming down pretty hard and there was probably 4+ inches on the ground.

At 3.5 miles we reached the end of the Black Pond trail and had no luck finding the bushwhack (although Strava showed that we initially had it before turning back and trying a different direction).  I was pretty confident that I could navigate the very open woods.  This was a fairly easy route as you could not go wrong basically following the compass north.  Worst case was drifting too far to the west but that was uphill so I kept us more northeast knowing we’d hit either Franconia brook to the east or Lincoln brook blocking us from going further north.  We ended up going almost exactly parallel to the real bushwhack location and hit Lincoln brook within 50 meters of where the trail crossed!

We were now at 4.6 miles and had another 2.5 miles on the Lincoln Brook trail before reaching the base of the mountain.  The going was slow.  The snow made it really hard to tell what you were stepping in.  Sometimes we had solid ground, sometimes mud, and rarely a bit of ice.  We both used poles the entire run which definitely helped but also both got wet feet (and hands).  We reached the stream crossing and made it across with little problem.  Crossing Lincoln brook a little later was a bit more challenging.  The snow covered rocks often hid a layer of ice.  The poles came in handing.  Dave very nearly went in when he stretched into a near split instead of taking a leap.  I thought for sure he was going to fall backwards but he managed it.  Soon after we could tell we were very close but despite careful going we never saw the Brutus bushwhack.  We also went by the slide although I knew we were close (the boulders give it away).  Dave checked his phone and we were maybe 100 meters beyond the slide.  We went back and found the reasonably obvious path heading up.

Now it was time to make a decision.  We were 2:32 into our run and a little over 7 miles done.  In good conditions the last 1 mile to the top would take a little under an hour, if we had any trouble finding the path we could be looking at it taking us 3 hours round trip to get up/down the final 1,500’.  After that we’d still have another 2.5 hours getting back to the car.  I think it was a pretty easy decision to make as both of us had cold hands and feet.  Getting up we’d probably stay plenty warm but coming down would be a long cold haul.  Decision made, time to turn around and head back.

We were pretty steady on the run back even a little bit quicker on the stream crossings as the worry about getting we was lower as we were heading back.  It was also a bit easier doing the bushwhack as we followed our footprints (which were only just barely visible as it was STILL snowing).  We only had a couple of quick stops for equipment adjustments (I had a frozen zipper on my tights that meant that my left ankle was exposed, but two pair of high socks made it nothing worse than a bit of flapping).  We also had to stop for a couple of minutes at the construction site on the Lincoln Brook trail where they are rebuilding a section that has had some serious wear issues.  We were back at the parking lot in just under 5 hours.  My ankle had been screaming at me the last hour-hour and a half of the run.  It was pretty swollen.  Not too surprising as the worst thing for my ankle is rough footing and there isn’t much rougher than trail/bushwhack in snow!

So, I’ll add Owls Head to my list of unsuccessful summit bids.  I’ve attempted and bailed on 14 peaks.  Six of those I went back to and was successful.  As the saying goes “The mountains will always be there, the trick is to make sure you are too”.  Dave had a very positive attitude about the trip and I’m looking forward to going back there and getting to the summit.

Straightback mountain run

Petey came up with an interesting run to do over the long weekend.  We met up and were joined by Dave Lapierre and Scott Spence for a 5 mile loop up and over Straightback Mountain.  I’d only been up this 1,890’ peak once before as part of a Belknap range traverse.  The deer flies were pretty intense, but just at the start.  We started out downhill on the Old Stage Road then turned uphill onto the Precipice path.  We turned onto the West Precipice path and then the climbing began in full force.  There was a solid ½ mile of trail that was very steep and involved scrambling among the boulders.  After the tiny waterfalls it moderated but was still steep and even had a little exposure in spots.

Scott and I pulled ahead as we got into a good conversation.  We stopped at the junction with the Belknap Range trail and waited for the others to catch up.  The BRT was a nice run of nearly a mile over to Straightback.  The views on top were excellent.  We headed down via the Straightback mountain trail and the Blueberry Pasture trail.  I liked the Blueberry trail which was more like a dirt road than a trail.  The 2.6 miles up took us 55:44 and the 2.4 down took us 31:31 for a total of 1:27:15