Pineland Sunday morning run

Distance: 11.75 miles
Pace: 9:05/mile
Avg HR: 153
Start Time: 6:02 AM

Met up with the Trail Monster crew early this morning at Pineland. Running were my 100-mile compatriot Jamie Anderson, and trail running gurus Ian Parlin and Chuck Hazzard. This was a very interesting crew, even for this early hour. I failed to have my cup of coffee this morning, which I find to be a mistake before an early morning run. While 6 AM would have been considered a late run a few months ago when 4 AM was the usual start time, now I think of it as the early run. It is unbelievable how much of a difference a cup of coffee makes on a long run, particularly for me.

At any rate, the run went well with us heading over to the farm side of Pineland and largely following the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge course. All was going well until roughly mile 5 when Chuck head a root while in his Vibram Five Fingers and Jamie and I took separate bio breaks. As I exited the woods no one was around and I called out for Jamie, to which there was no reply. So I headed up the trail after my group while chanting in my head "Leave no man behind." I finally caught up to Ian and Chuck (who looked fine) but no Jamie. So I hollered out that I was heading back for Jamie. Once reunited with Jamie, we began our attempt to catch up with the others. After a few minutes of this Ian eerily appeared from behind us "Chuckless". Apparently the fall Chuck took left him a bit damaged so he had headed back to the cars. Here's to wishing Chuck a speedy recovery. After a few more miles Jamie signaled that he was done because of not feeling well so Ian and I were left cruising together for the next few miles chatting about how to bring more trail races to Maine. More on that in a later blog, hopefully soon!

The rest of the run went well with Ian and I peeled off at just under 12 miles and two hours while Ian was hoping to get four out of the day. I hope he did well considering the deer flies were about eating me alive. The rest of my day was spent up at a family friend's camp where the kids played in the water all day and dad got to do the unthinkable: read the Sunday paper all on Sunday (usually takes me to Wednesday).

One nice thing that came out of the day is that my wife gave my VT 100 race story a read and not once did I see her eyes drooping during the ten pages of prose. She's so sweet. Hopefully I will have something out early this week. Tomorrow is a rest day as I have had a few days of good runs and my daughter's day care is having all the parents come watch their kids swim practice.

Oh, and thanks Chuck for the demonstration of the Vibram Five Fingers. I am a huge fan of the Nike Frees, which I use for all of my non-long Trail runs. I thought I was running pretty close to barefoot but the Frees are a farce when compared to the Vibrams. I may just have to give them a go!