Happy Patriots Day and good luck to Boston runners!
About 12 miles yesterday for me down at Fair Hill Preserve (MD) with some of the dawgs and the Lady. Nice route, kept in the woods on twisty single track for most of the route to stay out of the wind. 40 with light rain and wind. Saturday was mid 80's. A bit different.
QOTD: Sort of foul weather for the marathon today. How about a bad race weather story today? Rain or cold, not heat.
Rainy. Probably first MMT. Nasty spring drenching t-storms with wind and lightening hit not once but twice, around mile 35, and again around mile 55. Each time I had just left an aid station with a dry shirt. Rain seemed to lessen but continued well into the night. I don't actually remember it stopping but it did. Then it was breezy and chilly to finish. I remember when the violent part of the second storm passed I was climbing this steep trail back up the mountain along a gushing stream and a world of green. The rain was still coming down but it did not matter as the scene was so surreal.
In dog beers, I've only had one.
rest day here. The rain continues and it's cold (relatively). I am long overdue for a gym visit so I'll get some strength work in later.
qotd: No good bad weather racing stories. Related, but not applicable to me, I was keeping an eye on Zumbro this weekend. 17% finish rate for the 100 milers, not much better for the 50 milers. They cancelled the 17 mile. For those of you not aware, MN had a blizzard this weekend with up to 2 feet of snow and state highways were closed for the SW and SE portion of the state. 30 foot waves on Lake Superior. I promise to not complain about the weather (for a while).
A historic storm for our region this weekend. Parts of north central Wi. got 30" of snow. In one storm. In mid April. Nice. In tropical Madison we had an assortment from rain, sleet, to snow and ice. Still lightly snowing now. I am not shoveling. Not on April 16th.
Managed to squeeze in some trail miles Sat. and Sunday but the weather has me down so I'll take today as a rest day. Mental health day, too. Body could use it, too.
QOTD--I guess the one event that jumps out was a triathlon many years back where a hail storm came thru while we were out on the bike portion. The sounds of those ball bearing ice chunks hitting my helmet was epic. Not to mention the pain over the rest of my body. Then there was the effort of staying upright while trying to ride on marbles. Good stuff.
running under the BigSky
got in a tough 6-7-ish mile hike yesterday with DW and Tiny E; DW getting crabby over the post holing- luckily it subsided as we got higher (more exposure to the sun)
Tiny E wasn’t complaining, he found what appears to be a scapula from a mule deer fawn- still with a little meat on it!
probably strength train this evening, rain in the forecast
qotd : got hammered with rain/sleet/snow on a high, exposed ridge (well above tree line) on the Beaverhead 55- this was an off trail section that your basically boulder scrambling- wet rock = no good
2023 goal 2023 miles √
2022 goal- 2022 miles √
2021 goal- 2021 miles √
I lost my rama
XT - Is the MMT the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100? If so, I can imagine t-storms coming in during that time of the year especially with the mountain ridge. Sounded pretty epic.
runtrail - RWD mentioned Zumbro in the ultra thread. That's some crazy shit.
NH - Hailstorm and road bikes don't make for a good mix. I can imagine those nuggets popping off your helmet sounded pretty wild.
warden - Tiny E looks a little disappointed that the bone was smaller than him.
I'll try for an easy 4 tonight. Not sure if trail or not, depends on how muddy conditions are.
QOTD: Don't have any epic cold or wet race story. Wish I did. Last summer on trail, there was a flash thunderstorm with torrential rain. The trail turned into a stream with the water over my ankles as the lightning and thunder were breaking just over my head. Not much one can do but pray and haul your ass out of there asap.
3/17 - NYC Half
4/28 - Big Sur Marathon DNS
6/29 - Forbidden Forest 30 Hour
8/29 - A Race for the Ages - will be given 47 hours
Sue
Woke up feeling funny Saturday...but once I had a few beers I felt fine. guess I have a cold. Felt ok Sunday and ran 14 miles than stacked wood and yard rest of the day and totally felt like shit Sunday night. Glad it hit this weekend instead of next weekend. No run today...we got a light dusting of wet snow.
QOTD: Well I do live in CA so not much to report here. Did run a 1/2 in Napa Valley and it was dumping. They had to reroute the race because one stream was too high so it ended up being around 11 miles. At the start some guy was running with an umbrella. But like I said it was CA so the rain wasn't that cold.
05/13/23 Traverse City Trail Festival 25K
08/19/23 Marquette 50 dns 🙄
Somewhere in the UP? Gator's car?
Harrier - We are just getting tons of rain from that storm thankfully. That's just nuts for April. Mandy is probably counting her blessings that she is on vacation. I think there was some hail during that mmt storm but I was in thick woods and not exposed. Ouch.
Warden - Yeah, I was on the top of Kerns mountain when the one storm hit. Not above tree line like mountains out west but a high ridge made up of nothing but pointy rocks and boulder. Add to that not being able to see with wet glasses and near sightedness it was loads of fun. At least I did not "feel" exposed to the lightning.
Bert-o - yep, that's the one. Ran that one twice. No rain the second year.
Queen - Sorry you have the crud. Still getting over my bout with it. Edited... is that sunny CA?
Quick lunch 3.5.
QOTD: It's windy season here which is always fun. Free exfoliation and super exciting to run in Gusts of 40+!
Faster Than Your Couch!
SRD, Yoga instead. Yes, you are reading correctly, yoga. First time I am ever trying this in a group, and it was fun. I will be doing this now every Monday through June.
Berto: MMT is the Massanutten 100. I’ve been in some epic thunderstorms there, too, and of course right on a ridge. Exciting.
QOTD: Frozen hands, my pet peeve. Happens to me all the time.
At the Hyner 50k one year, I had relied on the weather forecast: temps in the mid-50’s, no rain. Turned out to be low 30’s, and snow. For about 2 or 3 hours, I thought my hands would fall off. Then I slipped and belly flopped into a half frozen mud puddle, leaving me mudcaked and cold for another hour or two. Still did decent at that race.
Run for fun.
the qotd reminded me of incident, it didn't happen to me, but it was during a Bridger Ridge Run race (August)- forecast was for typical summer weather in the Bozeman area- cool night and warm day, probably 75% of the folks were in shorts and t-shirts, a little chilly waiting for the start, but would soon warmup on the initial climb
what they didn't prepare for was that the mountains often have their own weather- even in the summer; a fast moving storm rolled in that spit sleet first and then snow- folks with no beanie, no gloves, no windshirt and subsequently a ton of folks that had to be escorted off the mountain
respect the mountains
Sue - That pic looks surreal.
FTYC - Frozen hands really suck. I'm kinda interested in Hyner. It's not too far from where I grew up.
warden - Your neck of the woods is a different beast, weather wise. I'm sure you're pretty well prepared. It's noobs like me that eff it up, haha!