Mountain Goat Race series continued this past weekend at Ascutney Mountain in Windsor, VT. This race is coming just a week after the Pack Monadnock 10 Miler. And for me, it was an eventful week. I swam a few miles, biked a few miles, and saw my parents as they came up for a visit, I went to Portsmouth, and I even got a 9 mile trail run in the day before the race with some friends in Framingham. Not exactly taking it easy, but I don’t like sitting still!
The Ascutney Mountain Challenge is a short race, 3.7 miles. It is up the entire auto road on the mountain, climbing about 2300ft to the top of the road (which isn’t even the top of the mountain, unfortunately). Ascutney is in Windsor, VT.. where Harpoon’s second brewery is as well. To take on this race, Matt (fellow Banger) and myself decided to go up Saturday and camp overnight, thus avoiding a LONG sunday of driving in the heat. So Saturday we headed up, Matt volunteered to drive which makes him one of my favorite people immediately. We stopped at the liquor store, then at Matt’s parent’s house real quick, and then beelined straight for Harpoon. Harpoon in VT is nice, it is located right next to a cheese shop (among other things). We startled our waitress by asking her for samples and descriptions of everything and she didn’t seem too on top of her game but she came through with everything in the end. We both got this amazing Vermont style burger and relaxed after driving. The campsite is only a few miles from Harpoon so it was nice knowing it wouldn’t be long until we were there.
Eventually we got camp all set and made a fire and drank some more beers around it, just hanging out. Matt is great company and it’s awesome that he is doing this series. Around midnight, I was slowing losing consciousness, I excused myself and went inside, lied down, and read maybe 6 pages of my book before I passed out. I didn’t open my eyes again until 8 am! I couldn’t believe how well I slept camping, I don’t think I’ve ever slept that well outdoors before. We woke up, walked in our PJs to the start to get bibs and whatever. There I saw Erik– the boy from the woods in the first race. He and I went out again Friday night and I had a great time so it was great to see him, too! The race started at 9am so I had to get ready though..
The race itself was okay for me. I ran pretty well for the first mile, but the second mile was a lot of “run 2 minutes, walk a minute” and I was okay with that. The grade of this race is pretty consistently steep, with most of the climbing occurring in the beginning. I knew the distance and where I was the whole time so I kept steady with equal effort for most of the race. The final mile and a half I managed to run more as the climbing evened off just a little. There was one final big climb to the finish which I ran in. I was happy with my time, but I still think I can do better. I don’t know why but I feel like I hold back in races, like I’m saving something in the tank for after or for more? I don’t know why, I think that is a product of doing numerous mountain runs by myself, for fear of running out of fuel and dying on the trail. That won’t happen to me during a race. I might blow up, but I won’t be in mortal danger alone in the mountains so I think I need to push more, and leave myself completely spent. (At the top of Ascutney, after just relaxing for 5 minutes, I felt almost fresh again). I felt this at Sleepy Mountain also… something to learn from!
Anyway, after the race, Erik, Matt and I walked down, crushed a beer. Then Matt and I cleaned up the site, met Erik at Harpoon for lunch (we had the same waitress, it was pretty awkward and pretty funny). Then Matt and I made the drive back to Brighton– playing everything from Andrew WK to Sunset Rubdown to Elliott Smith to Run the Jewels. Oh and of course we listened to the Mountain Goats to be appropriate… Matt’s iPod is nearly identical to my own weird taste in music and that just makes me think he is even more awesome. Good to know good people.
Matt, crushing it!
That elevation gain, though!
So.. that was Ascutney this weekend. Today, because I am a bit of a masochist, I decided to run Summit Ave repeats. It has been a while since I’ve done that specific workout. I like to do full repeats of both sides of the climb, so from Corey Rd, up over Corey Park and down to Beacon St. Then turn around and go back over. This way I get the big .4 mile climb and the shorter climb from Corey Rd. Last time I did this was maybe May, possibly even April, and I was tired and intimidated by the last side of the Beacon St. climb… today I did not feel any kind of fear. Yes, my butt is sore and my calves are a little weak.. but I was able to mostly run up everything and when I did walk, it was brief and it was mostly to prevent overdoing it. I listened to my ipod as I ran through some light rain and I felt really good. I averaged out to just under 10min/miles and that wasn’t pushing it at all. I think I can start to increase distance and intensity over there and will hopefully get some good hill sessions in before Loon and Cranmore (I’m really excited for Cranmore.. Sarah is going to race, too!)
Repetitive enough?
Okay, so I still want to make sure that I am learning and growing from every experience, so let me reflect..
- Equal effort on uphills, but make sure that the effort level is high
- Camping before a race is great
- Train on tired legs, push your body and then recover
- Try to really race… leave the place completely spent (although I don’t know if Loon is the place to do that…)
- Always enjoy the view on the way up 🙂
48 peaks 