Run Your Age - Year 39 Edition
“We will fight for our dreams and we will follow our passions, because
we believe that the meaning of life lies not in following others
footsteps, but in finding our own path to what we love.” Kilian Jornet
Yes, it is that time of the year when I go run my age as my way of celebrating my birthday. For the second straight year my birthday was on a weekend which makes getting the run in a bit easier.
This year we were up in Woodstock, NH camping for a few days so I was able to plan out a route that went through the mountains. An unfortunate the down side of this that it takes quite a bit longer to run in the mountains then it does on the streets.
For this year, I started at our campground, Lost River, and ran up route 112 and picked up the Beaver Brook Trail on route to summit Mount Moosilauke (a 4800' peak I had not yet knocked off). The first 3 miles on the road included 900' climbing and the next two miles up the mountain included another 2100' more. I got to the trail head just as the sun came up and those first few miles while brutal, were quite beautiful.
The next mile and a half weren't too bad until I moved above the treeline. It was about 40 degrees with the windchill and quite foggy. I got my summit picture and quickly descended down the other side via the Gorge Brook Trail.
The descent was quite pleasant. About 3 miles down I started to see some hikers and shortly after 5 miles I popped out on a fire road. It was a little weird as I ran by abandoned trailers and mobile homes separated by nice houses.
By mile 14, I finally popped back out on a real road, Rt 118. My time on the road was short lived as turned back off just 2 miles later. As I climbed up a fire road with knee high grass, I was pretty sure that I about to make a bad decision. After maintaining dry feet for the first 16 miles, my feet quickly became wring out wet from the morning due.
Shortly there after I picked up the Hubbard Brook trail. The website says, "little used" but I would qualify it as abandoned. Note to self, in the future, look up trails before you decide to run on them for the first time, specially when they don't go over popular mountains. Just because it shows up on Strava's map, doesn't mean it is really passable.
After about 3 miles / 47 minutes of bush whacking / looking for trail markers / trying to follow an arrow on my watch, I arrived at the far end of the trail and very happy to be on something that was easy to follow.
About a mile later I picked up the Mnt Kineo trail, my last major trail segment of the day. With an average pace of about 15 minutes / mile at this point I was really hopping to pick the pace up. I was wrong. While this trail was in much better shape, it had a good amount of ascent / descent. Over the next 3 miles I climbed and descended another 1000'. It also had a ton of bear poop which not giving me the best feeling.
At mile 25.5, I finally was out of the woods for the last time. For the next 9 miles I ran easily (mostly downhill) along Stinson lake. I was pretty beat by this point, but happy to see I could move at 8:30 pace again under more favorable conditions.
After stopping for a drink in Rumney, Amy called and said she had arrived in Plymouth. I simply said, "Pick me up and I'll run the rest tonight."
Later that night I went down to my local track with a few friends and knocked out the remaining 5.45 miles.
Run your age, year 39, is in the books: https://www.strava.com/activities/2610591046
- Scot
Yes, it is that time of the year when I go run my age as my way of celebrating my birthday. For the second straight year my birthday was on a weekend which makes getting the run in a bit easier.
 |
| The Start |
For this year, I started at our campground, Lost River, and ran up route 112 and picked up the Beaver Brook Trail on route to summit Mount Moosilauke (a 4800' peak I had not yet knocked off). The first 3 miles on the road included 900' climbing and the next two miles up the mountain included another 2100' more. I got to the trail head just as the sun came up and those first few miles while brutal, were quite beautiful.
The next mile and a half weren't too bad until I moved above the treeline. It was about 40 degrees with the windchill and quite foggy. I got my summit picture and quickly descended down the other side via the Gorge Brook Trail.
 |
| Cold Windy Selfie on Moosilauke |
The descent was quite pleasant. About 3 miles down I started to see some hikers and shortly after 5 miles I popped out on a fire road. It was a little weird as I ran by abandoned trailers and mobile homes separated by nice houses.
By mile 14, I finally popped back out on a real road, Rt 118. My time on the road was short lived as turned back off just 2 miles later. As I climbed up a fire road with knee high grass, I was pretty sure that I about to make a bad decision. After maintaining dry feet for the first 16 miles, my feet quickly became wring out wet from the morning due.
Shortly there after I picked up the Hubbard Brook trail. The website says, "little used" but I would qualify it as abandoned. Note to self, in the future, look up trails before you decide to run on them for the first time, specially when they don't go over popular mountains. Just because it shows up on Strava's map, doesn't mean it is really passable.
After about 3 miles / 47 minutes of bush whacking / looking for trail markers / trying to follow an arrow on my watch, I arrived at the far end of the trail and very happy to be on something that was easy to follow.
About a mile later I picked up the Mnt Kineo trail, my last major trail segment of the day. With an average pace of about 15 minutes / mile at this point I was really hopping to pick the pace up. I was wrong. While this trail was in much better shape, it had a good amount of ascent / descent. Over the next 3 miles I climbed and descended another 1000'. It also had a ton of bear poop which not giving me the best feeling.
At mile 25.5, I finally was out of the woods for the last time. For the next 9 miles I ran easily (mostly downhill) along Stinson lake. I was pretty beat by this point, but happy to see I could move at 8:30 pace again under more favorable conditions.
 |
| The track with Doug and Griffin |
Later that night I went down to my local track with a few friends and knocked out the remaining 5.45 miles.
Run your age, year 39, is in the books: https://www.strava.com/activities/2610591046
- Scot
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