Wind, wind, more wind...and another failed lottery.

I entered this year's Mount Washington Road Race lottery thinking I deserved to get in. To this point, I had already failed twice to get in via lottery or other means in my first two 100 mile race choices this year. Well, once again I was disappointed with the results. As far as the official lottery goes, I am a no go. There is still one back channel I am working so wish me luck and stay tuned.

My runs the past few days have been good but challenging due to the weather, specifically the wind. Friday's noon run was chilly and windy. Temps were just below 30 degrees, but coupled with a wind of just shy of 30 mph the "feels like" temp was nearer 14 degrees. Chilly. Also, the last mile and a half was running into this brisk wind so the average pace of 7:24 was hard earned. The splits started around 7:30 and progressed to 7:16 by mile 4 and then settled around 7:24 for the last couple miles.

Friday: South Freeport / 45:17 / 7:24 pace / Avg HR 154 bpm / Max HR 181 bpm

Saturday was my 6th straight run this week and was my long one at 17 miles. I did a fairly typical route from my house down Tuttle Road to Route 88 for a run along the water and then back home through Yarmouth. I cut just over a mile off my run back to shelter myself from the 16 mph headwind but taking a more sheltered but hilly road which culminated in having me scale Bruce Hill in my minimalist Nike Frees (please see the elevation spike in the chart to right). The road ends at Bruce Hill and turns into an impassable, and now snow covered jeep trail, which is the intersecting points for many trails, only one of which I have ever explored. I plan on doing more exploring back there this spring and summer. Anyhow, this climb was a challenge given how tired my legs were and the fact that I could find no purchase in the snow. All in all, this run was good but illustrated the point that I have a ways to go to build my long run endurance up. But I've got plenty of time. Oh yeah, I loaded on my iPod and gave a listen to Blaine Moore's interview with Emily LeVan. Fun listen. Go donate!

Saturday's Run: Route 88 Run / 2:11:29 / 17 miles / 7:44 pace (the first 10 miles was near 7:20 with the last 7 much slower due to the uphills and wind) / Avg HR 154 bpm / Max HR 179 bpm

And Happy Easter! This evening Kelly and I went for a nice little run of 4 miles (my 7th of the week). And this took me 38:28, slower than usual. But I was also running behind my two kids in the jogger, pushing them up the backside of the Bruce Hill from Saturday's run (see end of elevation chart above). So a good run; one that I plan on working into my 100 mile and hopefully Mt. Washington race prep!