Trail Run Recap and Grand Prix

When it comes to running for me, sometimes it's just about finishing. But in the case of my trail runs, even just finishing has put me in third place for the Grand Prix. Let me start with a recap of the two October trail runs that I talked about in my running update post.

Way back on Columbus Day I ran the Fall Festival 5K Trail Run at Lawson Lake. It was a beautiful and warm sunny day, easily in the 70's by race time. My time was an incredibly slow 43:47 (14:06 pace). There are some parts that are very steep and required walking, or should I say climbing. I also was overdressed for the weather. I came in 37 out of 47 runners. That was Ok because 1) I finished and 2) I was not even close to last place. So I was satisfied.

Completely unrelated picture of mums near my office. 

Last Sunday I ran the 15th Annual Squirrely Six (miles) at Thacher Park. That is held in conjunction with the Hairy Gorilla Half (marathon) and is a fun Halloween-themed trail run. On Sunday, as forecast, it was pouring rain. My time was 1:26:57 (14:30 pace).  I came in 147 out of 165 runners.
It was not cold once we started moving; in fact it felt really good. Just like Lawson Lake, there were some steep uphills and downhills that I walked. That, and being super careful running in wet leaves and mud is what led to another slow paced run. Again, I was happy with my finish.

These two trail runs were my ninth and tenth races of 2019.

On Saturday afternoon I volunteered to set up and help decorate. Saturday was just gorgeous and the park was jam packed with people enjoying a great fall day.

Now about that Grand Prix....

My running club has something called the Grand Prix Trail Series. The Grand Prix encourages trail running and trail volunteerism.  You are in competition with others of your gender / age group.  That slow time at Lawson Lake still earned me 5 points in the Grand Prix Trail Series. Helping set up Saturday earned me a volunteer point and running on Sunday earned me 6 Grand Prix points as well.
I am solidly in third place in my gender / age and in the running to win something wonderful and exciting like a cap or a water bottle. Ha! 

So it's funny how I can finish near the back of the pack and still be in third place in Grand Prix.  And that matters to me!

Reading Lately

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
If you read the book The Red Tent that was all the rage a couple of decades ago, then you know what an amazing writer Anita Diamant is.  This book starts out in 1985 with Addie Baum telling her life story to her granddaughter.  It is a well written historical fiction novel.  If you can relate at all to Boston in the mid-1900's, Jewish immigrants, or young girls finding their voice, you will love this book. The girls would go to Rockport Lodge every summer and I was wondering if that was a real place.  It turns out that Rockport Lodge is totally real, and was the inspiration for the author to write this book. Anyway, Addie's parents were not the most nurturing people, but I found reading about their dysfunctional home life to be quite entertaining.  Eventually Addie finds mentors outside the home - and true love of course! The book was not as emotionally gripping as The Red Tent but I still recommend.

Well-worn library copy

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
My husband made me read - I mean strongly suggested I read - this book, which I did while we were in Clearwater last month.  At first I was cringing at this boring awful 69 year old widower who never left the house.  He wore the same old man sweater vest every day and didn't do anything. While finally cleaning out his late wife's closet, he finds a charm bracelet tucked away in the toe of her rain boot. Each charm has a clue about an aspect of his wife's life before they married. Mr. Pepper goes on both emotional trips and real life adventure trips to discover the story behind each charm. The book grew on me as Arthur Pepper blossomed.  He questioned his life with his wife, but the quest helps to bring out his good qualities and improves his relationships with his children and neighbors. I never quite understood why he loved those crazy clown pants though! All in all, it was a good read.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
I picked this book up because it is the fantasy type book I enjoy reading.  David is a 12 year old boy whose mother passed away.  His father remarries Rose who gives birth to his half brother Georgie.  Rose and his dad are wonderful, but David has a chip on his shoulder. The story takes place just outside of London during WW2. To escape the bombing, they move to Rose's family's estate where it turns out a great uncle and his adopted little sister disappeared as children 60 years ago. The books in David's room murmur and talk to him. They lead him to a passage in the garden where David is transported to another world.  But this is not a good world; there are the half man / half wolf Loups, for example. There are several charismatic good guys - all men. I disliked the intimation that Roland - one of these good guys - was homosexual.  It was completely unnecessary to the storyline.  I kept waiting for this so-called "book of lost things" to turn up, and some resolution to the mystery of the missing children.  It was a loooong wait, but my questions were answered.  The middle 100 pages of this book could have been omitted. Skip it.

Thanks for reading!

Reunion

Last Saturday night I went to my 40th high school reunion. This was a big deal for me because I have never been to any previous reunions. My memories of high school are okay but not great. My high school was very cliquey and I never felt popular.

Some background - I live a few hours away from my hometown and I don’t have a Facebook page.

First the good part. I reached out to two former best friends ahead of time. Both of these ladies were so warm and welcoming to me. They came to my mom’s house Saturday afternoon before the reunion. One of the girls was a grade ahead of me so she didn’t attend the reunion. She could have because it was open to other classes but she is the caregiver for her elderly mother. The other girl has been attending all the reunions.

As far as the reunion itself, all I can say is meh. I saw several people I hadn’t seen in 40 years and it convinced me that people don’t change.

There was one bad part about the reunion and I am baring my soul to you readers by writing about it. A woman came up to me and the first thing she said was “I have a memory of you and it’s bad / you’re not going to like it”. I’m not kidding - that is how she greeted me after 40 years.

She said that in 10th grade I had written something about her that wasn’t nice. I have no memory of this whatsoever but it certainly made me feel bad. I told her I didn’t remember writing anything like this but if I did I was sorry. The rest of our brief conversation reinforced that she is not a nice person. Which makes me wonder if I did write this because I disliked her 40 years ago. How would she have seen it or known about it anyway?

My mom said the whole thing is silly because even if I wrote anything, I was a 15 year old kid.

My husband thinks it is hilarious that this woman has been coming to reunions for 40 years just waiting to confront me. I have been wracking my brain trying to recall this and nothing rings a bell. Oh well.

Did I get to say hello to a few people from the past? Sure, but who cares. They have their lives and I have mine.

Running Update

First of all, you may have noticed that I made some changes to the look of my blog. The picture behind the heading was taken in July in the Adirondacks and is a view of Algonquin from Iroquois. I blogged about that here.

This post is a running update.  Before I started blogging, I ran my first half marathon.  It was the Big Cottonwood in Salt Lake City Utah in September 2018. You guys, it was hard! I felt great for the first 9 miles. Miles 9 to 10 were so-so.  At the 10 mile mark, I was done in.  And I still had a 5K to go. I had to walk the last 5K and I was crying and blubbering the whole way.

But the silver lining (aside from the fact that yes, I did complete that half marathon) was that I knew I could comfortably run 9 miles. So, I signed up for and ran the StockadeAThon which is a 15K (9.3 miles) last November.

I am doing it again this November. I have routinely been running 3 to 4 miles but with the race only a month away, it is time to increase my mileage. On Saturday I ran 5 miles and it felt great. It took me 1:01:50 (12:22 pace).

Here is a screenshot of my running year to date:

That is 221 miles in a year, not a month! It doesn't appear likely that I am going to make that 450 mile goal I set for myself. On the other hand, I will meet my goal of running 12 races this year. 

The Lindenwald Trail Run was number 8. I was debating whether it counted as a race, because it was free and it was so low key. But, on the other hand, we had bibs, it was timed, and there were prizes. That makes it officially a race.

Coming up this year are Lawson Lake 5K trail run on Columbus Day, Squirrely Six 6 mile trail run on Halloween weekend, the above-mentioned StockadeAThon in November, and the Last Run 5K in December. Those four will officially give me 12 races and who knows - maybe I will even do a Turkey Trot for lucky 13!

Thanks for reading!

Kinderhook Trail Run

Saturday was a beautiful and warm sunny day and my husband and I took advantage of that by running the Kinderhook Dutch Farming Heritage 4 mile trail run. The course traversed the farmlands of Lindenwald, Roxbury Farm and the Luykas Van Alen House.

Lindenwald was the home of U.S. President Martin Van Buren and the property is a National Park Service registered site.  There are tours of the house afterwards, but we passed as we had done that in previous years.

President Martin Van Buren was very contemporary for his time - he had one of the first indoor flush toilets.  He also had a modern coffee maker; in fact if he were alive today he would have a Keurig machine, an espresso maker, and all kinds of coffee making gadgets.  Yes, I remember that from my last tour of the home.

The trail itself is great because it is dirt and grass, with absolutely no rocks and roots.  Part of the trail runs right alongside the pastures.  The cows and baby calves were all out there mooing like crazy! It was reassuring to know that the fence that separated the animals from the runners is electrified.  We were warned not to touch it, and apparently the cows knew too!

I felt really good and the only difficult part was a steep hill at the very end, but I ran it without having to walk. My total time was 50:47 (pace 12:42). This run was super low key; there were only 60 or so runners.


Lindenwald - you can see the finish line water station at the right

Last year's run - photo courtesy of National Park Service

Afterwards, we stopped at a nearby farm to buy some apples and cider donuts to bring home.

Thanks for reading!