She Says: It's official. We made it to across the state line into Vermont today! And then some.
Steve and I both had long slow-pace training runs scheduled, so decided to use the miles as our ticket to Vermont. We left a car at the snowmobile highway trailhead in Heartwellville, VT, then drove back down to the reservoir in North Adams where we had left off last weekend. We wove our way through North Adams, past MassMoCA, through the middle of town, then up the gauntlet of old mill buildings heading east up Rt. 2.
North Adams is kind of a pit – but with a lot of gritty character, and leaving it behind me was harder than I thought. Yeah, I do have a bit of a soft spot for this sad, grungy, funky town, but haha, leaving it was hard only because it requires running up an endless friggin' hill. Long, long, long. But once we were at the high point (we passed “Cliff Street,” which is a good indication of over-the-top topo) it was a nice rolling slog. Steve peeled off and ran up ahead at his real pace at about the 5 mile mark. I could see him far, far up ahead until about the 8.5 mile mark, where we each stopped to take our self-portraits in front of the “Welcome to Vermont” sign, but after that, he was gone, baby, gone.
The next 8 miles up Rt. 8 just kept “rising to meet me,” but unfortunately, with no Irish proverbial “wind at my back.” The last two miles of the run were nonstop, serious uphill. The kind that would feel really good when it's over except that you're too used up to feel anything. Hot chocolate and homemade chocolate chip cookies, courtesy of Jennifer, in the car at the end. Oh yeah.
Happy to have the first Vermont leg done!
He says: Today was a great day primarily because we actually got to Vermont and really starting “running Vermont”. The route was 16 miles from the reservoir in North Adams up through Stamford Vermont ending in Heartwellville. We wanted to do back roads as much as possible in North Adams which worked out well. However, the main roads in North Adams have a monopoly on the bottom of the valley so we did a little extra altitude to stay on back roads (2755 feet total up, 1933 total down).
Coordinating our marathon training did add a little complexity. I was supposed to do 16 miles and Lizzy 18 (I had an Achilles problem 2 months ago and had a later start on our training program). But, my pace is supposed to be faster than hers. We ran the 1st 5 together then I sped up to my pace. When I got to the end I looped back to join her and ended doing 17.3 (the last 1.5 cool down pace). She didn’t want to cover future Vermont miles so she then turned around and did 2 miles back the way we came and I picked her up in the car. This worked out fine but I do look forward to post marathon when pace won’t matter and we can run together.
Roadkill/Strange Items Report (RSIR): 1 dead rat in the gutter next to Burger King in North Adams.
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