Run to Win

188 runners made their way out in the fog and wind last night to compete in cool temperatures that hovered right around 60 degrees.

Claton Conrad took it out in about the same pace as last week’s race, finishing only 2 seconds slower in 16:13 for his 1^st trip around the Back Cove this season. Despite a guy yelling to me at about a mile and a quarter, there was no chance of anybody being able to “run him down” last night though, as I finished over a minute behind him in 17:14.

Abbey Gosling is establing a trend, winning the women’s race in 19:16. She is now 4 for 4 in the wins category for her participation in the race this year; 2 more races and she should debut nicely on the leader board.

Kellie Stratton knocked 2 minutes and 17 seconds off of her cumulative time on the leader board this week, but it wasn’t enough as Julianne Baroody ran her 6^th race and came onto the leader board with an almost 12 minute lead.

Nathan Augustine did not improve his time at all, but he has the distinction of having run in all 8 races to this point, a distinction held by only 7 people.

Seth Differ came onto the leader board in the lead for the men this week, with about an 11 minute lead over Nathan. I expect that the leader board is going to be shaken up quite a few times over the next few weeks until it settles out for the rest of the season and becomes a battle between fewer players.

(More Info: Full Results – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List)

Have you participated in the Mud Hog Trail Race yet? This year’s event is scheduled for August 9^th, and I’m planning on heading over with Erin to help out and to do some camping (there’s a Rib Fest the day before, can’t miss out on that!)

Here’s some info from Matt Hartman, the race director:

The Mud Hog Trail Race enters its third year this year at Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford, NH. The race takes place on August 9th, the same weekend as last year when more than 100 muddy competitors took to the hills of NH. This year race organizer Matt Hartman expects the race to be nearly double in size. In the race, teams of 2 begin together, one racer on foot the other on a mt. bike.

The biker reaches an obstacle ahead of the runner drops the bike and continues on foot. When the runner reaches the obstacle, they traverse the obstacle and pick up the team’s shared bike. Teams will leapfrog each other threw 4 obstacles until the final leg. Competitors finish the race together by crawling threw a near 60-foot mud pit on their hands and knees!

After the race all competitors and volunteers enjoy a free BBQ picnic with live music while watching over the remaining racers finishing through the mud. Proceeds from the race benefit Breathe NH, New Hampshire’s oldest non-profit voluntary health agency.

For more information, you can check out the race website by going to:
http://www.mudhograce.com/

Matt did a radio interview a few years when he first created the race.
Click here if you’d like to listen to it.

In another wind-aided run of 100 meters, Tyson Gay ran (as I like to put it) not quite slow to finish in 9.75 seconds. That’s the 7^th fastest 100 meters ever run under any conditions, although it is not eligible for the record books given the assist from Mother Nature.

He only ran the first round of the preliminaries and then called it good for the week, as he prepares for a showdown with Usain Bolt at the World Championships.

That’s gonna be a good race, despite being over by the time you could blink.

(More Info: ESPN – Photo Credit: Sky Sports)

It’s been about a month since the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge on Memorial Day weekend, and the official photographs are now available.

I’ve also done my best compiling all of the race reports that I could find as well as any other sources of photos. So far, my count is up to a dozen race reports and a half dozen sites with photos from the race. Here are a few links, although check the bottom of my race report for an up to date list that I’ll keep adding to as I find more (and if you know of anybody I’ve missed, shoot me a link!)

175 runners were met with some fog at the Back Cove this evening, with Michael Payson leading the way by bringing in this year’s fastest time to date: 16:11. Curtis Wheeler was chasing him down, a mere 9 seconds back.

Abbey Gosling again won the women’s race, this week in 19:20.

Kellie Stratton debuted on the leaderboard this week in first place with almost a 2 minute lead.

Nathan Augustine improved his lot to first place by knocking almost 3 minutes off of his cumulative time; he has now made it to all 7 races so far.

I didn’t make it to the race this week; with my legs as sore as they are I decided to do a few easy barefoot miles on the streets near my house with my wife.

We also found a small bug with the Back Cove website software, so if your name didn’t appear in last week’s results that should be resolved soon as we update the standings now that the technical glitch has been fixed.

(More Info: Full Results – Leader Board – Photos)

This Saturday a group of us went to Sunday River to map out some possible trail race courses and see what was available by foot. Most of what Erik knew about the trails came from skiers and mountain bikers, so it was important that we check out what was actually possible and workable by foot.

Ian just put up his report on the run, which included a video that he put together that can give you a small idea about what it was like to be running through there:

You can see more about the run over at Ian’s Trail Monster Blog.

I recently received this question in an email from one of my readers, Tom Hoffman, and it seems particularly relevant to me given this weekend’s workout.

I really enjoyed your last email regarding the importance of the easy days. I’m sure that for most runners that ran competitively through HS and College, the concept of an easy day is hard to actually realize. I always remember being pushed even on the easy days. Our coach didn’t really know any better either.

On the topic of easy/recovery runs, do you think they really help you recover? After you’ve reached a certain level of fitness, do you still benefit from the “easy” miles? I’m excluding the long easy run of course. Sometimes I feel like I benefit more from a complete day of rest rather than a 5 to 8 mile easy run.

Thanks,
  Tom

When comparing an easy run versus a complete day off, it depends. Sometimes, I just need a day off or an easy walk and I’m good to go after that. Usually, though, I feel better after an easy run than I do before hand or if I skip a run completely.

Generally speaking, the more fit you are then the more often you’ll want to go for an easy run rather than take the day off. Of course, as you get older, it won’t matter how fit you are, you are probably going to need that day off now and again.

Right now, I tend to take a day off every 2 to 5 weeks, and then every 4 or 5 months I will take a few days off in a row as life demands or as I just need a break after a long season.

If you have trouble running easy enough on your easy days, then you are better off just going for a walk or taking the day off completely. Easy days only work if they are easy.

(Photo Credit: Giga Paitchadze)

This morning, my friend Erik Boucher picked me up and we went up to Sunday River to scout some trails for the Mountain Epic trail races next Autumn. The original plan had been for a half dozen of the Trail Monsters to head up and spend two days on the mountain, but with the Mount Washington Road Race this morning and a bunch of the guys running 33 miles on the Pemi Loop 2 days ago, we were only met by Ian Parlin (who did actually run the Pemi Loop a few days ago) and by a teammate of mine, Dan Crooker.

I’m glad that Dan decided to meet up with us; he knows the mountain very well and with his help we managed to scout just about all of the trails we wanted to run and didn’t need to stay overnight.

The original distances we’d been thinking of were for the most part a bit short of what we found out there. The 1-peak short loop will still be about 4 miles, but the 5-peak medium loop is closer to 11 miles than 7, and the 8-peak hard loop is about 15 miles instead of 11 miles. There’s a lot of fun terrain, though.

We started by hitting some single track and heading up to North Peak, which is pretty central to the routes for all 3 races.

We wound up running the opposite direction to Jordan Peak than we’d originally planned on by going up the Kansas Trail, but we decided that that was a good direction to be running in so the course will likely wind up going that way. (There will probably be a detour up to Spruce Peak before Jordan Peak, though, rather than after as we ran it.)

After hitting Jordan Peak, there’s a very quick descent halfway down to the bottom before climbing back up to North Peak. We got some pretty rapid turnover heading down there; Ian took some video so I’ll link to that if he puts it online.

At North Peak, our guide needed to head back home since he’d already been out there with us for 3 hours, and Ian went back with him to get the GPS coordinates of some different single track trails than we took on the way up. Erik and I continued on to hit the last few peaks before heading back.

All in all, we were out there for about 4 hours and 42 minutes, 3 hours and 31 of which were actually spent running (or walking, as happened in many of the steep places.) We covered just over 15 miles and managed to hit all 8 peaks.

(Photos – Map – More Photos)