A fast mile, Boston Registration, and a Summer/Winter week

Thankfully, I was able to log slightly higher mileage last week (key word: slightly.)

On Monday I participated in the virtual BAA Patriot's Day Mile, which seemed like a really sensible distance to tackle. Unless someone asked me to run it with impressive speed, and then I would take a hard pass. 

That being said, I did manage to run the mile in 7:25 while giving a solid, if not breakneck effort (I just could not see the benefit of making myself puke from over doing it!) 

It started sunny, and then poured on me.... TYPICAL!

THEN, on Tuesday, I registered for October Boston and we'll see how that shakes down. People are flipping out that their 15 minute buffer won't be good enough, and I'm pretty sure they need to take a logical breath. I'm going to predict that the cut off will be 7:15 minutes better than qualifying pace, which is SUPER SUPER conservative, but I'm going with it. Let it be known, that is my official prediction.

The rest of the week was pretty normal as of late. A couple little runs. A big hike up the baldfaces. 

Always a great hike

Weather is everything from 28 degrees with a "real feel" of 10, because of the wind, to 72, sunny and SWARMS of black flies. Typical Maine crap. It does look like Spring now, for sure, and many things are well ahead of schedule (like, the ground is dry. flowers blooming. and, BUGS, as mentioned)

The grass is growing

Two bikers won the challenge last week, and there's nothing a runner can do to chase people putting in solid bike mileage. While I did up my game and was well over the "required" number of miles, I'm sitting solidly in 6th. 

However, I am the 1st place person out of the "on foot only" competitors, so it's not like I really have dissolved into puddles complete uselessness. I just can't keep up with normal mileage bikers, while running pretty low mileage. 

Stats:  

Miles run: 17

Hike: 9.5

Warmest day: 70 on Saturday

Coldest day: Low of 25 high of 38 Thursday with mega wind SUCK

Snow: NOPE

Bugs: YEP, black flies

Place in Challenge on Sunday night: 6th. My fate is sealed

Covid shot, bad bad running, Spring, Snow, Chaos!

Phew, ok. 

so the past couple weeks have been a bit of a cluster, for a variety of reasons. 

I have basically had two solid weeks of crap/no workouts. Lame. 

The week before that, I really took step forward! I had 4 decent runs, as hoped for. I managed a bit over 24 miles in that time, which I was very happy about! Plus, Spring arrived, the snow melted, and all was well. 

That weekend we also cranked out about 15 hiking miles in some chilly but solid weather. Cold enough to pause some of the rapid spring melt, but not so cold as to freeze us to death. 

We checked off Pierce for April, and took the long walk up Moriah for the first time in a couple years. 

Pierce for April!

The following week..........

After two 12 hour work days, I got my Covid shot on Wednesday the 7th and the shit hit. I was DOWN and OUT. Easily the sickest I have been since I was in my mid 20's (yeah, I got pertussis when I was 28 and I'll NEVER forget that....) But this shot shut me down. 

Great success!

I suppose the good news is (thus far) I have managed to avoid the one in a million blood clot problem. Go me. 

We did venture out for a very messy/shoulder season/muddy/monorail hike on Sunday, visiting Madison via Valley way for the first time in years (we did Madison Via Howker last summer.)

I felt great during the hike, but a little lethargic/super headachy in the following days, prompting me to continue my "rest".

Ellington on Madison

ALSO, I was immediately slapped with three more 12 hour work days. SO, not exactly R&R by ANY stretch. 

And THEN, it snowed and was gross. 

AND THEN. I began to get these stupid, red, hot, ridiculously itchy rashes that apparently are something that can happen after the Covid shot. LOVELY. So that kind of slowed me down AGAIN GROSS WTF. I have never felt such itching. TMI. All over my poor legs and my shoulders and it was BAD. 

This is how my shoulder rash looked. It was wayyy worse on my legs!

UGH! So I think I managed 9 total miles this week and that is just plain silly. 

On Tuesday I can register for Boston and see how my qualifying time from 300 years ago holds up.

Hopefully this coming week brings ZERO 12 hour work days, NO snow, 4 runs, and 1 hike and NO NO RASHES. And one successful Boston registration (we'll know in May, from the sounds of things. And then we just hope for fewer Covid cases and all that normal 2021 stuff.) 

Oh, After my pretty decent week of mileage I was low key pissed to still be in second place in the challenge! BUT, we now have a biker in the lead, and you can't compete with someone who is putting in both running and biking miles. I did not even check after Covid shot week, because I was too sick/itchy/headachy to give a crap. And after this past week's lousy mileage I am currently in 8th place, the first 2 are almost finished, due to hundreds of miles of biking and there will be no catching them. Hopefully, in the upcoming weeks I can crawl my way back up at least a bit!