Part Two

On Sunday, I awoke at my regular weekend long run wake-up time and ventured to The Trail of Tears; Cape Cod’s Mecca for mountain biking and off road fun. The West Barnstable Conservation Area reportedly received its menacing nickname due to the difficulty of the various trails that twist and roll through the 1100 acre plot of land. In my youth I’d run these single man paths for miles, but now prefer the less undulating fire roads that crisscross the sandy power line highway. I met my old pal Pat Dennen for a planned 100 minutes. Pat mentions he’s a frequent RED FOX reader, so here is to you Pat!. Pat and I met at some rinky dink summer cross country race 12 years (or so) ago. We were the same age and both training for our high school (and later college) cross country seasons. Finding people to run with on the Cape can be a difficult task, so we’d meet once or twice a week to battle it out on shaded trails. We caught up on old times and kept the pace gentlemanly. I added another couple of miles after dropping Pat back off at his car for a total of 17. More on the trail system here - http://capecodbikeguide.com/tot.asp

I finished the week with 85 miles, my highest (I think) since February. This brings my 2009 average to 71 mpw and 78 mpw since beginning the “surge”. I am hoping to run in the area of 80-90 until I race at Falmouth. This year, I’ll make Falmouth an easy week. After Falmouth, I’ll ramp back to 90-100 before beginning my September taper.

On Monday morning, I ran nostalgically past both of my old childhood homes and then headed over to the home of my oldest childhood friend. Hale was in town visiting his family…though he now has a family of his own. Married with two kids, Hale seems to be getting along quite well. He and his wife own and run a breakfast/lunch restaurant in Salem, NH. I promised to have eggs there next time passed through. After 30 minutes of playing catch-up, I excused myself and ran the final two miles back home before packing my bags for the trek back to Washington. It’s always disheartening to leave the Cape in the summer, but alas, I need to make money so that I can buy my cockatiels their much needed seed.