Vacation week

I had a week of vacation which normally would mean a lot of running. With my 2 weeks of low mileage over I was ready to ease back to more running but had to be cautious not to do too much too soon. I had booked a site at the Little River state campground (VT) and planned out a bunch of other things I could do in addition to some running.

During the week I ran on 11 different trails/rail trails:

Sunflower trail (Concord NH)

Freeman rail trail (Chelmsford MA)

Middleton rail trail (Middleton MA)

Stevens rail trail (Hopkinton NH)

Barre bike path (Barre VT)

Montpellier bike path (Montpellier VT)

D&H rail trail (Castleton VT)

Stowe bike path (Stowe VT)

Northern rail trail (Lebanon NH)

Concord & Sunapee rail trail (Concord NH)

Londonderry rail trail (Londonderry NH)

sunflower

Stevens

Barre

D&H

Stowe

Montpelier

Northern

Concord & Sunapee

Londonderry

 

I also hiked to two town high points (Barre City VT & Williamstown VT) and later biked to four town high points (Essex Junction, Winooski, S. Burlington, Burlington)...and one Geocache. The hikes were in pouring rain. The 24 mile bike ride was on the nicest day and featured a mix of busy main streets, great bike paths, and quiet country roads.

Williamstown

 

I had hoped to do more road biking, but rain and wet leaves made it less than ideal. I did get in a nice (tough) ride from Stowe to the top of Smuggler’s Notch. It was just shy of 10 miles with 1,800’ of climb. The last mile in the notch had nearly 500’ of climb and the final ½ mile was very steep single lane road with switchbacks. The wet leaves nearly caused me to crash on one of the steepest parts during the ascent. The return to Stowe was fun once I got down below the switchbacks. I maxed out at 36 mph on the descent.

 

Over the course of my vacation I got in runs with Eric and Dan and checked out the progress of the house Dan is building. 

I also got in runs with Petey, including one with Dave La who hasn’t been down as much since moving to NH. I beat dad twice in cribbage, but both were close competitive games. The vacation was bookended with excellent “Turtle Pond” rides in Concord. Chilly, but always great fun.