Yes, finally our annual trip to New England. Amanda and I look forward to this trip all year. It's our best opportunity to see family and friends and do all of the things that we miss doing now that we live in Georgia. A few years ago we decided to turn this into a two-week trip and it's been one of the best things we've ever done. One week just isn't long enough to fit everything in. Honestly, sometimes two weeks isn't enough for everything we want to do, but we're still lucky that we're able to get back-to-back weeks off from work.
On to the 2018 edition of the Tour of New England. It actually turned out to be more of a tour of Massachusetts and Maine with a couple of diversions into New Hampshire this year. One of the things we didn't get to do due to some scheduling difficulty was a day in Vermont. That was a little bit of a bummer, but fortunately, I was able to get up there for a bit when I was home earlier in the year. That and Richardson's Ice Cream has maple walnut, so at least I still got to have my annual giant cone of that.
Before we headed back up to Boston, I jumped in the Dirty Spokes Haw Creek 10k trail race. I missed a bunch of Dirty Spokes races last due for a number of reasons, so I really wanted to make sure I made as many as possible this year. We ended up booking our flights home for the late afternoon, which gave me enough time to get over to Haw Creek and get the race in before leaving. I really planned it out well, because after the race I still had time to head down to Dutch Monkey and get a few post-race donuts.
As far as the how the race went, it went out fast. Very fast. Tim Spradlin, who is 54 and has been on fire in the short race series this season took it out at a blistering pace. I probably should have hung back a little bit but I jumped early and ran right on his heels for the first half mile or so. I tend to have issues settling in sometimes and the fast start ended up putting me out front solo fairly early. Things were all good for the first loop, but I really started to pay for it on the second. The heat, humidity, and fast start made the second lap of the course very tough and I was super relieved to be able to hang on for the win, which sealed the series win for me. I'll still have to run the final race, but barring injury, I'll be at that one.
I recruited a couple of friends from work to come out and do the race as well, so after I finished up cooling down with Mitch Novy, I met up with those guys and grabbed donuts and watched a little bit of the world cup before heading home and getting ready to fly to Boston.
Tour of New England
We started off our vacation with a few days at the Park Street Inn, a.k.a. my parent's house. I got some good mileage in on some of my favorite hometown routes. I hit an old favorite that runs past Amanda's old house in North Reading, the standby Peabody Street loop, and a cool run up to what used to be the Danvers State Hosptial - the inspiration for Arkham Asylum and now an apartment complex. We spent a fair amount of time by the pool and got in a beach day up in York and made sure to hit up a few of our favorite local spots to eat, namely Sam & Joe's pizza in Danvers.
I got a couple of nice runs on the Topsfield Rail Trail, including two workouts which allowed me to snag a KOM. I'm sure it won't last long, but it's fun to snag one or two of those on popular local routes.
After spending a couple of days of relaxing by the pool and on the beach we decided to get out and move around a little bit. I've been wanted to get up to Mt. Agementicus for a while but it's one of those things that I always think of after the fact. Fortunately, this year I thought of it early one day and we decided to take the short ride from York, Maine to check it out. It's a very small mountain. More of a large hill, but it's really close to the coast, so on a clear day you get some cool views of the Atlantic from the top.
We did a short hike around to the back side of the mountain and then up to the top before doing a little exploring around the summit. It's a pretty neat little spot actually. At one point it was a small ski hill and the remnants of the old chairlift are still at the top and the old lodge has been renovated and gets used for classes and groups. We were a little early for the wild blueberries, so we'll definitely have to get up there again if we go back later in the summer.
A few days later we made our way up to Portland to spend some with Amanda's sister and dad. We took the scenic route, stopping at Stonewall Kitchen for a big breakfast and hit up a few awesome little coastal towns along the way. As usual, I spent the next few days tramping all over the place catching up with some friends. I made a diversion into New Hampshire to meet up with my brother and best friend growing up to play some paintball
I drove down to Weare, New Hampshire to meet up with them and we got in a full day of paintball. We spent most of the day in the woods then got in a few games on the speedball field to close it out. AG Paintball was an awesome field to play at. One of the better ones I've been to in New England. We dominated a couple of games on their new S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier field and the castle field before the staff broke up our little team. It was a super fun day and I definitely miss getting out and playing paintball. It's such a fun sport to play. I'm hoping I can get a group of guys from work together for a day at some point over the next couple of months.
After a full day of running around in the woods, I made my way up to Topsham, Maine to catch back up with Amanda and her family for a nice dinner. The next day, I was up early again for an adventure run with Joe Reynolds. We'd been planning a run for a couple of months leading up to this trip and he picked out Camden Hills State Park in Camden, Maine. He picked me up early and we made our way up Route 1 along the coast to this awesome state park.
Rad Run // Camden Hills State Park //
Obviously, Acadia gets all the love in Maine. And while I would love to get up there at some point, Camden Hills is an absolute gem. It's nestled right on the coast and sits next to a picturesque lake and the Camden Snow Bowl - site of the Toboggan World Championships.
We started off on the Ski Shelter trail - an amazing bridle path trail that worked its way up to a small ski hut in the middle of the park. Our plan was to hit as many of the summits in the park as possible. There are something like seven or eight summits contained within the park, but we figured if we hit between five and seven of them we'd run around 10-12 miles.
*side note: These summits aren't overly high. Only three are over 1000 feet, so it's mostly rolling, with a couple of steep climbs mixed in.
Things started off really well. We rolled on the ski hut trail for a while and cut through the majority of the middle of the park easily enough. When we reached the Bald Rock trail we decided to skip Derry Mountain and Frohock Mountain since we'd end up having to run pretty much straight back to the car if we took that route. If we only knew.
We elected to climb up to Bald Rock Mountain, which sits at 1200 feet. I quickly found out how well Reynolds trail training has been going as he gapped me easily when we started going up. I was struggling a little bit on the steep and rooty climb, but I settled into my own pace and ground my way up to the top. When we reached the summit, we were treated with a spectacular panoramic view of the Penobscot Bay.
Leaving Bald Rock mountain we made our first misstep of the day. When we rejoined the Ski Hut trail and consulted our map, it appeared we needed to head a little further out on the trail to catch the next one we were looking for. That wasn't the case. It was basically right in front of us, but we had a nice 15-minute detour before figuring that out. No big deal. We planned on sticking to our original plan anyway and it would turn the run into a 14 miler. If we only knew.
We crossed paths with another runner, who told us the route he was going and we considered running with him for a few minutes, but he said he was looking for 3000 feet of elevation gain and that seemed a little aggressive for us so we went our separate ways. If we only knew.
Based on the route he told us he was taking we knew we needed to skip one left turn, so we took another look at the map and headed off into the woods on the Sky Blue trail. This trail was fantastic. It was a mix of a little bit of everything. Doubletrack, singletrack, soft dirt, pine needles, roots, rocks, ups, and downs. I have no clue how long we were on that trail but it was one of those times when you feel like you could just run all day. If we only knew.
After a super enjoyable section of trail, we reached a junction and headed left. At this point, we paused and looked at the map again, which had pretty much disintegrated due to sweat. We both thought it was the left that we were supposed to skip, so we decided to go back, make the right turn and then take our next left. Unfortunately for us, that left never came. We had misread the map and ended up popping out in someone's backyard. Uh oh. We looked at the map again and immediately realized our mistake. I pulled out my phone and we decided that our best bet was to jump on the road and make our way to the Maiden Cliff trail entrance, some two miles away.
This was a little bit of a blow to morale. We were 11 miles into the run at this point and we figured it was going to be somewhere around six or seven more miles before we returned to the car. There wasn't a whole lot we could do about it at that point, so we just started rolling on the road. Despite our sizable miscalculation, the morale was still fairly high between the two of us. We both seemed to just accept that it was going to be a while but all we could do was run so we might as well try to enjoy it and enjoy the fact that we were running together.
We stopped for a few minutes at a boat put in on Megunticook Lake and dunked our heads and hats in the water to cool off a little bit. This was a nice little pit stop because it reminded me to take a second to enjoy how amazing the area we were in was. Shortly after that break, we arrived at the Maiden Cliff entrance to the park. We stopped for a minute and looked at a good map, since ours was toast, and figured out our best path back to the car. The morale took a bit of a blow when we realized we had to go up and over Mount Megunticook, a 1000-foot, two-mile climb before we'd descend down to the car.
We ended up splitting up on the first part of the climb as Joe went into full grind mode and just clawed his way up the first half mile or so of the climb. I alternated between running, "power" hiking and just plain hiking for a while. I also broke out my emergency Untapped packet, which really saved me. I had a little bit of a mound conference with myself while I was downing the maple syrup and that helped me embrace the adventure of the day.
I was grinding my way up the trail 25 or 50 yards behind Reynolds and was just kind of in my own world for a little while. I was so in my own world that he had to call out when he had stopped and pulled over at an overlook. Without that, I would have blown right past it. I'm glad I didn't. The incredible view of the Snow Bowl and lake - along with the maple - gave us a second wind and we wound up running the rest of the climb together.
The climb actually got a little easier as we went along with a few ridge line breaks. It seemed like it took us forever but we eventually made it up to the summit of Mount Megunticook - the tallest mountain in the park. We took a minute at the top to grab a couple pictures and figure out the quickest way down, making sure we didn't end up doing something dumb and adding another handful of extra miles to the day.
From Megunticook we descended down to the Ocean Overlook, which instantly made all the effort of the climb worth it. The view was epic. You could see the bright blue water of Penobscot Bay as well as the idyllic town of Camden below. The low lying clouds that we saw on Bald Rock had moved away and it was picturesque. I could have just sat down and hung out at the Ocean Overlook for the rest of the day, but Reynolds told me he packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they were waiting in the car. I hugged him, we got a few side eyes and then started to make our way down.
The descent was fun but definitely a little precarious. We were 16 or so miles into the run and had to be really careful not to get lazy and take a fall on the way down. We passed a bunch of groups of people heading up to the overlook on our way down and we probably scared a few of them, since we were borderline delirious at that point.
Finally, after descending nearly three miles we made it back to the parking lot. My watch said 17.8 miles, so 18, Reynolds phone said 19 miles and we ended up climbing more than 3000 feet. If we only knew indeed. We tried to find a spot to get into the ocean after finishing the run, but we weren't really willing to spent too much energy hiking down and decided to make our way back to Portland.
With Reynolds being in the craft beer industry, we stopped at a small brewery in Rockport and while they had solid beers they didn't have food, so we made the executive decision to go to McDonald's and get 20 McNuggets each. The last time I went to McDonald's was after a six-hour hike on Mount Washington with Ferenc in 2010. I got 20 McNuggets that day too. After Reynolds dropped me off back with Amanda I ate a bunch of Chinese food and passed out on the couch at like 8:30.
I spent the next day two days doing some very easy running on some local trails. Reynolds and I met up the next morning for a very mellow five at Bradbury Mountain State Park and the next day I went to Pineland Farms to explore their XC ski trails. Amanda's sister and her husband showed us a really cool breakfast spot in Yarmouth, so I tried everything on their menu before and after those runs.
A Couple More Rad Runs
I did a few more cool runs over the final week of our vacation, hitting up Breakheart Reservation in Wakefield, Mass. one day, running to Cape Neddick lighthouse and the Wiggly Bridge in York, Maine another and closed out the trip with a double loop of Trav's Trail at Maudslay State Park in Newburyport.
The run at Maudslay was a great way to close out the trip on the final day. I met up with Ben Kelley, an old friend of mine that I have known since elementary school but had not seen in forever. Ben is training for the Bay State marathon and he's into a little bit of everything when it comes to endurance sports. He's a running, cyclist, and AT skier, and we reconnected through Strava and Instagram. It was awesome to get a chance to catch up with him and chat about what he's been up to. I'm hoping to catch up with him again the next time I'm home for a run and maybe a little uphill skinning.
Tree Tapper
My brother is really into the craft beer scene in Massachusetts and he's been singing the praises of Night Shift Brewing for a while. Coincidentally, Night Shift Brewing did a collaboration with DRINKmaple and announced that they were having a release party for their Tree Tapper, maple water pale ale while we were home. I had to go to that so Amanda and I made our way back to Massachusetts and grabbed my brother then made our way over to the brewery. Tree Tapper is pretty tasty. Now it doesn't taste like maple. The yeast feasts on all the sugar, so the maple flavor doesn't really come through, but it was still a good beer. Everyone knows I like to judge a beer on the 'how well does it go with pizza' test, so clearly that's why they had a pizza food truck for the release party. I'm happy to report it passed the test easily and paired nicely with both the standard cheese pizza and the more exotic BBQ pulled pork pizza.
Rising Tide
Since we were in Portland and visiting Reynolds we had to hit Rising Tide as well. I love this brewery. It's in a nice spot in the Back Cove where it's close to everything but still out of the way enough that it's not always jammed. They also have one of our favorite beers, Pisces, a Gose brewed with Maine seawater. Reynolds got us into it last summer and Amanda has been on a sour kick ever since. I personally love a Gose on a hot day after a bike ride or run. I think a lot of people are scared off by the salt, but that's the best part.
Gear Review // Myles Apparel // Switchback Shorts
I wanted to pack somewhat minimal for this trip and made the decision to go with just two pairs of running shorts. This decision worked out because I packed my Myles Apparel Switchback Shorts. I pretty much live in one pair of their shorts or another but these things have become my go-to everyday training shorts. The brand makes a few different pairs of go anywhere, do anything shorts. I'm actually wearing their Everyday shorts as I type this.
The Switchback shorts though are their first dedicated running shorts. They have a standard brief liner, which I prefer to the boxer brief liner, and feature both regular side pockets as well as a zipper security pocket. The zipper pocket fits an iPhone 8 plus, you notice it's in there but it fits and doesn't bounce, while a regular iPhone 8 fits with a small amount of movement, not an issue if you feel like listening to a podcast while running or something like that. I've used the zipper pocket for my phone, GoPro session, Untapped packet and house key - not all at the same time - and it's been ideal. They are six inches which give you enough length to grab a post-run coffee or sandwich without looking like a weirdo.
I highly recommend giving them a shot if you are in the market for an everyday training short.
What I've Been Into Lately
Ted King // King of the Ride Podcast
I have been really, really into Ted King's podcast since he launched it a month or so ago following his second win at Dirty Kanza. Sometimes podcasts with interview formats wear a little thin on me, but that's what I really like about this one. It's more of a conversation than a straight-up interview. Ted meanders through the career/life of his guest, keeping both the audience and the interviewee on their toes. He's had some really interesting guests that all have one thing in common, they love riding bikes. I really enjoyed the episode with Farid Noori, the founder of Mountain Bike Afghanistan.
Lance Armstrong's // The Move Podcast
Another bike-centric podcast for you. While I have my hangups about Lance it's hard to deny his knowledge of the tour. Granted, his knowledge of today's riders may be a little off at times, it is still interesting to hear him break down the stages. If you want really good analysis, listen to Dane Cash and Cosmo Catalano on the Recon Ride. They are better when it comes that, but I still find Lance's commentary interesting. I particularly enjoy the guest appearances by George Hincapie. He seems like one of the few people that can call Lance on his BS and it's actually pretty refreshing. Lance actually admitted that he was a dick at one point. It's interesting and that's how I'm looking at it.
Outside/In Podcast // Paintball History Lesson
While I was home I ended up joining a couple of buddies for a day of paintball in New Hampshire. Oddly enough while I was driving down from Maine to meet them, I put on an episode of Outside/In and it happened to be about the origin of paintball. I knew that the sport started in New Hampshire, but the nuanced storytelling was really interesting. It featured a couple twists that I don't want to spoil, but if you are a fan of paintball or a good origin story give it a listen.
What's Poppin on IG
My co-worker Austin Hittel spent some time in Yellowstone during his summer break and took some epic photos. I highly recommend checking them out.
I had a little case of nostalgia from this photo.
Josh Ferenc has been on a tear lately. I missed him while we were home, but he picked up the win at the Catamount ultra 25k back in July.
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