Rad Run: Are You Afraid of the Dahhk

I feel like this is the most appropriate way to start off this blog. I don't know the origin of the image, but I had seen it somewhere before and it was the first thing I thought of when I sat down to start writing about my night time mountain adventure with Josh Ferenc. If that doesn't set the scene for you...try this one on for size.

That's the text I got from Josh on Sunday morning as Amanda and I made our way up to Vermont from my parents house in Massachusetts. As it says, Josh proposed a night run up Magic Mountain on Sunday night. Sometimes I regret going along with his suggestions, but I thought it sounded fun, so I agreed. After spending the day hanging out then consuming a higher than recommended amount of chicken wings Josh picked me up from the Grafton Inn  at 9 p.m. where Amanda and I were staying and we made our way to Timber Ridge, a defunct ski mountain in Windham, VT.

I know this was set out to be a night run, but it was wicked dahhk dude. Josh promised an "almost full moon", but on the drive it looked more like some sort of eclipse. We parked the truck at the base of Timber Ridge and each polished off the remainder of our Red Bulls. Despite not being able to see the moon, the stars were incredible. That has always been one of my favorite parts of the New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine experience, the stars are awesome. We don't get that in Georgia. There's a cul-de-sac every 20 feed and Atlanta has got some serious lightblubs. You get the star-filled sky a little bit in the North Georgia mountains but it doesn't compare to rural New England.

We fired up our headlamps and made our way from the parking lot up to the base of the mountain on a well packed snowmobile trail. While Timber Ridge doesn't operate as a ski mountain any more it is open to snowmobiling thanks to the Vermont Association of Snowmobile Trails (VAST). We followed the VAST trail, which from what I could tell (because it was dark) used to be a groomer that wrapped around the edge of the mountain. A green circle, with a couple of steep sections, that was probably more fun to ski down or snowmobile up than it was to run.

We slogged our way up the VAST trail but after a couple of minutes I was able to settle into a climbing gear and just grind my way up the slope trailing slightly behind Josh and way off the back of Ellie and Lena, who were setting a blistering pace. The snow was actually pretty good. It was softened a little bit by a warmer day but considering we were running on top of a couple of feet, we only dealt with minimal slipping. One of the great things about this being a night run was I couldn't tell how steep the trail was in front of me. I could only see what the headlamp was lighting up and it was all snow so it just looked like a white wall.

Here's an old image of when Magic Mtn owned Timber Ridge. Our route up is in red and the way down in black 

After 20-25 minutes of climbing things started to level out a little and we came to a snow bank on top of Timber Ridge. We followed a small break in the bank made by a snowmobile and things leveled off nicely. Following a few minutes of gliding we reached the summit of Magic Mountain. We pretty much ran right up to the chair lift before I realized we'd reached the top. It was a cool feeling to be at the top of the lift at night like that. They don't have night skiing, so we were the only people on the mountain and it was a combination of eerie quiet and peaceful serenity. With the stars and a slight wind, it felt like we were miles away from another human being. Then a guy came flying up lift trail on a snowmobile and ruined it.

We studied the trail map for a minute and even Josh, who is normally pretty relaxed when it comes the possibility of getting lost suggested that we should stick close to the lift. I agreed. It was really dark and while our headlamps light up the path in front of us, it would have been really easy to miss a trail sign and end up biting off more than we wanted to chew. We ended up doing a couple of short laps under the lift. It was awesome watching the girls bomb down the trail. Lena legitimately might have been going 40 mph down the trail.

It's tough to see but we ran down White Out and up Upper Magic Carpet

I don't know if it was that I was running with Josh, the cold night air, or the Red Bull but I felt like I could have run that loop 10 times. It was awesome! While we were doing our summit loops, the moon finally started to show itself through the trees. As promised it was epic. Nearly full and with a slight pink tint it lit up the trail on our way back. I wish I could have take better pictures, but even with my GoPro set to night mode it was too dark. I've got a couple of video clips that I might try to salvage some highlights from but I haven't had a chance to check them out yet.

After enjoying the sights for another minute or two at the top of Magic Mountain we made our way back down the connecting trail to Timber Ridge. We decided to head up to the summit of Timber Ridge before heading back to the car, which was a short climb from where the VAST trail connected with Magic. We shut our headlamps off for a few minutes and let the moon light the trail as we climbed up the gradual incline along a ridge line that led to what I thought was the decommissioned lift house at the top of Timber Ridge.

As it turns out...(according to NewEnglandSkiHistory.com) It was a cabin built on the footing of the former double chair that was featured in a 2014 episode of National Geographic's Building Wild. Yup, I found the episode. I haven't watched it yet but I'm looking forward to it. From the preview it looks like it give a good view of some of the steep terrain that we were dealing with. Also Josh needs to befriend these people immediately if not sooner.

Here's the link to the video. I couldn't get it to embed.
Top of the World

From their we bombed down the well traveled snowmobile tracks that led down Timber Ridge's main trail to the base lodge, which has been converted into a cabin lodge for the people that own the mountain. We finished our run on a small section of road before dropping back down into the snowmobile parking lot. Unfortunately, as soon as the car was in sight my heart sank.

"Did you really leave the dome light on?"

"Oh shit."

I left the dome light on in Josh's truck and was 1000 percent sure it wasn't going to start. It wouldn't be the first time we've been stranded without transportation, but at 10:30 on a Sunday night in the middle of nowhere it's not exactly an adventure that I wanted to go on. Thankfully, the 1992 Forerunner proved to be the modern marvel that it is and she started right up. The girls jumped in and were passed out before we pulled out of the lot. Josh dropped me back at the Grafton Inn where I slept like a rock after the Red Bull wore off.

The next morning Amanda and I were treated to an awesome country breakfast complete with pure VT maple syrup from right down the street...highlight of the trip. We hung around the next day and drove to a couple of covered bridges and checked out Rudyard Kipling's house (did you know he was a 4:30 miler? At least that's what Cassidy said) to do a few New England things before heading home.

It was great to get to spend a few days up in Vermont with Josh. It's like hitting the reset button on my soul when I go up there. I can't wait to get back up in the summer. I know New England has been pounded with snow this year, but some times I really miss it.

Here's what the looked like on Strava:

Back to the Basics

The New Year has started for fairly well for me training wise. I took two weeks off in December after the final XTERRA race of 2014 and after about a week of running three miles a day and working on gluteus medius exercises I graduated to running five or six for the second half of last week. I put in 32 miles for the December 29 to January 4 week, which wasn’t half bad considering I started the week out with three days of three mile runs.

This week, I feel like I am finally getting back into the swing of things. I logged 39.5 miles on seven runs and got back to a rhythm of getting up running and then heading to work. It’s still a little tricky with timing out my runs because the sun doesn’t come up until about 7:20 or 7:30 and it’s been even later some days when we have a lot of cloud cover. All that means is that I had a few days where I got to work later than I would have liked, but I ran the Flowery Branch 5/7 mile route more than 200 times last year and I’m just not feeling like running that route right now. Unfortunately, there’s not much in terms of route options from the office and even though I’ve been running the same out and back run on the greenway, running from home at least gives me a few more options. Running from home also allows me to run on trails, which has been a welcome change.

I ran on the greenway six days this week, but I did get in a good eight miler at Little Mulberry on Sunday. It’s always tough starting over after taking extended time off, so eight miles might not sound like much, but right now running eight on trails and feeling pretty good felt like forward progress. It’s always hard mentally when you see what other people are doing for their training or racing when you aren’t in shape. I just have to keep reminding myself that it’s all part of the process and my goals are for races and runs down the line, not tomorrow. I just have to stay the course, work on building things back up and I will be ready to roll when my goal races come around in the coming weeks and months. Still, there’s nothing worse than starting from scratch.

The polar vortex didn’t help the starting from scratch thing either. Last year, when it got cold I was going from running five miles five days a week to between 5-10 seven days a week, so it wasn’t as big of a deal, but when the temps dropped to single digits and below zero, that wasn’t fun. I have to admit though, I saw a lot of tweets and facebook statuses from people back home running in -20 wind chill, so I had to suck it up. I refuse to let myself get soft of cold temperatures.

Weekly breakdown
Monday – Greenway five + weight room
Tuesday – Greenway five + weight room
Wednesday – Greenway five + weight room
Thursday – Greenway five
Friday – Greenway five
Saturday – Little Mulberry eight
Sunday – Greenway five

I almost took Sunday off, but Amanda made homemade doughnuts so I felt like I needed to get something in. The two biggest things for me this week were getting in the weight room and staying off the roads. The greenway is only paved for ¾ of a mile and rest is gravel or trails which was awesome. I need to keep getting in the weight room to work on leg strength and start working in some core next week.

One final note on this week, I ran most of my runs in my La Sportiva Helios. I really like that shoe and I’m probably going to invest in a new pair, but I must admit I was pretty stoked to get a fresh pair of Saucony Rides. I put about 500 miles on my last pair and hadn’t replaced the since before training camp, so it felt nice to get my feet into a new pair of shoes. I’ve been running in Rides since I worked at GBRC and served me extremely well over that time. It was more fun when I was running for Saucony Hurricanes and got them for free/50 percent off, but still that’s my go to everyday trainer. I am looking forward to checking out the breakthru when those come out though.

On to next week…
Next week will be more of the same for me. Work is in a bit of a holding pattern right now, so I’ll be sticking close to home or the office for my runs this week. Once we hire a coach, then I can start to mix in some different things after work. Training wise, I’ll be looking for more of the same consistency in terms of pace and distance. I also plan on working in one workout, either hills or a light tempo run. The first race of 2015 the Dirty Spokes Frosted Foot race at Central Park on Saturday. I’m going to get tuned up, but I’m not really looking at any race as a race until February, so I just need to go out there and get used to running hard again. It’s a 7.5 miler though, so a blow up is probably in my future.

2014 Year In Review

I don't know where to start or where to begin...how many people get that reference? I guess I'll start by saying that 2014 was an interesting year. It was fun, but frustrating. There were times were I really felt like a certified roller (Peachtree) and times when I questioned what I was doing (pretty much first four months of the year), but in the end it was another year of trying to push myself to new limits and I'll take that.

I covered 2,479.4 miles, according to Strava, which included 2,230 miles of running and one incredibly ill-advised 50 mile mountain bike race...errr...ride. Despite being a little down on myself early, I did accomplish my main goals. I won the XTERRA Georgia Trail Series and the Dirty Spokes Trail Series, I ran really well at Peachtree, and I stepped up to a competitive regional race at Rock/Creek River Gorge and made statement. I also got out of my comfort zone with two mountain bike races and a triathlon. Looking back, it was a pretty solid, eventful year. Rather than bore you (aka the three people that will read this) with the details, here's a short rundown with some pictures and a video.

My year according to Strava:

Here's my year in photos:

It got cold in Georgia

I won a zombie trophy 

I was fortunate enough to be a Strava Ambassador

I crossed state lines to Tennessee and finished third in one of the toughest races I've ever run.

I joined a friend for a 6 hour mountain bike race

I did a little running in the City of Angels

I ran my best race of the year in the biggest race of the year 

I ran in Aruba 

I went to Vermont and did Vermont things 

I survived another tri

I AM THE GUY ON THE STANDIE! 

I finished the Fools Gold 50 mountain bike race 

I rolled 

I went to the UK and explored London and it's amazing country side

This was just a cool picture. 

It was a pretty fun process going through all the pictures I took last year and to find some of the best running related ones that I had. As I embark on another year of trying to push myself to the next level, I hope to share my experiences with the vast community of runners both in the real world and online through this blog and social media.

Let's roll. 

Salomon Rock/Creek River Gorge 10.2 Mile Trail Race

Editors note: This race was in March and I wrote the recap shortly after the race, but I took my sweet time posting it since work has been so busy lately.

I’ve been itching to get back up to Chattanooga ever since Amanda and I spent a weekend up in the Scenic City last summer, so when I came across the Salomon Rock/Creek Trail Series I figured that would be a perfect opportunity for a return visit. After taking a look at my tentative 2014 race schedule, mostly Dirty Spokes & XTERRA races with a couple of other things sprinkled in, I saw a couple Rock/Creek races that would work for us. I settled on the River Gorge 10.2 miler that kicks off the Salomon Rock/Creek series last weekend. Week booked a hotel and I scoured Roots Rated for some stuff to do and next thing you know we had a whole weekend planned out.

River Gorge Podium

The night before the race (Friday) I picked Amanda up at work in Sandy Springs and we made our way up to Chattanooga. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get out of work as early as I had originally planned and we ran into brutal traffic on 285 and 75. It ended up working out pretty well though as we got to the hotel around 7:15. We missed packet pick up but it gave us enough time to grab dinner from Provino’s, relax in bed, and get a good night’s sleep before the race. 

I still woke up around 5:15 a.m., because I still had to do news clips for work, but that gave me some time to eat something, I brought almond butter but forgot English muffins (FAIL!), so I went with a cliff bar. We actually left on time which allowed us to find a Dunkin Donuts, Amanda was obviously pumped, and make it to the race venue with plenty of time to spare. Getting to the race venue early was nice for a change, since lately I’ve barely had time to loosen up before the start. 

The race was held that the Prentice Cooper State Forest about 15 minutes from downtown. We pulled in to the main entrance with a line of about 10 cars following us along the dirt road to the start/finish line at the Cumberland Trail trailhead. I grabbed my number and had Amanda pin it to my Strava kit while I checked out the first mile or so of the course and loosened up for the start. 

The race started on the dirt road right next to the trailhead and climbed a short hill before turning left onto a jeep road that led to the single track. I didn’t really know what to expect from the field. Having never raced in Tennessee or run the trail before I had no clue who would be a contender and who wouldn’t or if I would really even be a legit contender for that matter. I settled into the group as we made the early climb but once we reached the top I decided to make my intentions known.

I took the lead at the top of the hill and used the long gradual decent down to the entrance of the single track to stretch things out and see how the others would respond. I’d read that the race was technical, but didn’t have a ton of climbing so I felt like I needed to run hard on the places that where runnable and just survive the more technical parts. I charged onto the single track and focused on trying to stay light and quick on my feet to pick my way between the roots.

Shortly after entering the single track, I was greeted by a crazy staircase that sits in between a giant crack in a massive boulder. I can’t even do it justice describing it, here's a picture.

Somehow I made it through without incident and then tried to start rolling. Paul Patterson (the eventual race winner) settled in behind me and while I was hoping we’d work together a little bit he just sat on me for first seven or so miles then ended up passing me on a brutal climb. I felt like we were rolling pretty well, but this was a true trail race, so it was tough to get into any kind of rhythm. There were a lot of changes in direction, slight ups and down, and a bunch of short steep descents, sharp turn, creek crossing then short steep climb. These took a toll on me as the race wore on, but I didn’t notice until it hit me all at once around 7 miles or so. We came out of the woods for about 400 meters and climbed up an old jeep road before the second aid station, then turned back into the woods and began the climb of my doom. I actually felt really good on the climb up to the aid station and put a little time on Paul, but the steepness of the next climb just killed me. I tried to recover and rally on the long descent but then came the Rock Garden.

Holy shit, the Rock Garden sucked. I felt like it took me a week to get through it. Nate Holland (a local Chattanooga ultra/trail beast) buried me and while a small part of me just kept saying get through it and then hammer to catch back up, most of me knew it was over. Once I got out of that nightmare I tried to rally and I did feel like I was gaining ground there just wasn’t enough race left. 

I ended up finishing third in a respectable 1:13:49, which turned out to be the 10th fastest time in the history of the race. I like to think that even though the suffered at the end and fell apart I made the race by getting out and pushing the pace. I’m looking forward to getting back to this race next year and trying to improve on my result. 

River Gorge Trail Race Top Times

'11 Aaron Saft - 1:08:32

'11 Jacob Bradley - 1:10:08

'02 Rodney Stoker - 1:10:35

'14 Paul Patterson - 1:12:25

'10 Nicholas Selbo - 1:12:30

'03 Joel Stewart - 1:12:41

'14 Nathan Holland - 1:12:49

'04 Nicholas Wilkinson - 1:13:03

'05 Bryan Dayton - 1:13:28

'14 Matt Haley - 1:13:49

After the race, Amanda and I hung out for a bit and talk to a few people. I won a sweet North Face shirt and a Salomon waist pack. We made our way back to Chattanooga, stopping at a Dunkin Donuts to grab a Tennessee mug, then after a quick shower we spent the day eating and exploring some of our favorite spots via the cities bike share. We ended up at Buffalo Wild Wings watching college basketball then passed out at the hotel at 9:30. The next day I ran up to Stringers Ridge to check out the trails before we made our way back to Georgia. Overall a great weekend even if I was a little disappointed I ran hard and tried something outside my comfort zone.

A big thanks to Rock/Creek for putting on the race and Roots Rated for a ton of great ideas of things to do in Chattanooga, including my Sunday run at Stringers Ridge and some excellent burritos.

Here’s a story about the race from Roots Rated.

http://rootsrated.com/stories/river-gorge-trail-race

Peachtree City Classic – USATF Georgia 15k State Championship

This race was a last minute decision. I got an email from USATF Georgia about their Long Distance Running (LDP) Grand Prix a couple days before the Ft. Yargo XTERRA race and saw that the Peachtree City Classic was the 15k state championship and that there was cash on the line for placing in the grand prix overall. I originally thought there was a cash prize for the 15k, but that was wrong. Regardless, I’ve wanted to checkout Peachtree City and its extensive network of golf cart paths for a while, so Amanda and I decided to drive down and check this race out.

 

I ran well at Ft. Yargo, so I figured if I ran smart I would have a chance to place high and maybe get the win. Despite missing the first race of the series I still had a shot at the purse because no USATF members ran as open runners.  The worst I could do was tie for a place in the overall and still possibly win it. Since it was a game-time decision to go to this race, I really didn’t know much about the course, other than the fact that it was almost entirely on golf cart paths. I felt like that would be a good middle ground for me. Paved trails, I might like trails more but I’m probably better on pavement.

 

We got to the race a little later than I would have liked, which made parking a little bit of an issue, then it took forever to find the check-in table since I had to make sure to register my USATF number. Once I got that settled I only had about 15 minutes to get a light warm up in and hit the portos. I jogged around a little and did a few strides then made my way to the start. The weather was a perfect, a little wet and overcast, but the rain stopped pretty early on so it was perfect for racing. Before the gun, I mentally marked a couple of guys that I figured would be at the front, manly an ATC guy and a couple of the other masters’ runners. When I checked in the USATF people told me I was the only open runner, so I knew I had that win wrapped up but I still wanted to win the race if I could.

 

At the gun I got out towards the front of the lead group, but immediately backed off as I could sense it was a little on the fast side and from the looks of the group I thought I could pull it back once we got settled in. I had to fight the urge to run to the front a few times early on after the lead group of six runners started to open a gap of about 30 to 50 meters on me. I didn’t realize it until I saw the GPS data on Strava, but the first mile was a gradual downhill, so I probably could have run with the front group from the get go, but mentally I think it was a good decision to stay relaxed early on.

 

I ended up closing the gap on everyone and catching up to the two leaders just after the two mile mark and my first two splits were 5:26 and 5:40. My plan going in was to try and run 5:40’s so I was a little fast on the first mile, but not really since it was downhill, and right on with the second mile. I ran with the two leaders for about half mile before moving into the lead. I could tell that they didn’t want to set the pace after I caught up to them fairly easily. One guy actually asked me if I had decided to take the first two miles off. The first 2.5 miles were run on the main roads of Peachtree City, but after that we ran to the end of a cul-de-sac then hit the golf cart paths for the rest of the race.

 

Once we got onto the golf cart paths I put in a little bit of a surge and opened up a small gap on the second place runner and dropped the guy that was in third. I slowed down a little bit too much over the fourth mile, due to a long gradual climb. After an up and down first four miles I got back on track and started running in a really good rhythm and opened up a big gap on the guy in second. From mile five to the end of the race I ran pretty much exactly what I wanted to run.

 

My splits from miles 5 to 9 were:
5:42
5:45
5:40
5:42
5:49

 

I know that’s not blazing fast but it was right on pace for what I felt like I could run. It was nice to be able to get into a rhythm and roll like that. I haven’t run a road race that long in a while and it’s a lot different than racing on the trails. The course was really cool. The cart paths were all set back in the trees but they weaved behind houses and every time you had to cross a main road they had tunnels running underneath. It was pretty cool to see the spectators out in the golf carts all along the course.

 

I think I read that Peachtree City has something like 90 miles of golf cart/multi-use paved trails. I’m thinking about trying to convince my parents to retire down there. It’s a little bit of a hike for Amanda and I, but it would be a great place to run and bike every now and then.

 

The red is the 15k course, the green marks all the golf cart paths

The final stretch of the course rounded a lake then dropped us back out onto the main road that we started on. It was a cool feeling to come down the final stretch in front of a pretty good crowd despite the wet weather. I was pretty pumped when I crossed the finish line, as I picked up my first state championship.

 

Check out my sweet USATF Gold Medal

I also ended up winning the USATF Georgia Long Distance Running Grand Prix since no USATF members ran the Dalton Half Marathon the next week. As the great Dominic Torretto once said, it doesn’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning is winning.

 

Strava data from the race.