Pack Monadnock 10 mile Mountain Race

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Pack Monadnock 10 Miler in Wilton, NH
May 5, 2019
This race is part of the USATF Mountain Series, I ran as a Gate City Strider.

After I finished before I started on the walk back down.

Mountain race number 2 is complete. 

Last big fight of the game.

This was the closest I've gotten to a DNS(Did Not Start) in a long time. The day before we hosted my sons birthday party at the house. I ran a table top role-playing game for the kids. Realms of Terrinoth*, part of the Genesys system*, for those that are curious.  My son wanted pizza and funky shaped mac&cheese. I'm allergic to dairy. While I did not touch or eat any of it, the smell in the air pretty much set my adrenals on high alert, DANGER, DANGER. I could not sleep Saturday night and I felt completely off on Sunday morning when I got out of bed. My stomach was off. I ate half the amount of food I intended which turned out to be helpful. I swear I had 3 bathroom trips before we left the house, a stop at a gas station on the way(it was only a 45 minute drive), and then 2 more before starting the race.

For my non-endurance racing friends, we want several bathroom trips to happen before a race, that is much better than needing a bathroom during the race. Though even with that knowledge I was getting worried, and I didn't know if there were any porta-potties on the course.

I'm sharing my stats for this race if only to be honest. When I was planning on the race I was thinking 2 hours or 2 hours and 15 minutes. The morning of, I realized, I'd either have the PR of a life time or a hot mess of a disaster. I honestly ended up in a very happy middle ground. In the end I took 2 hours and 45 minutes to go 10 miles uphill. I did that with tummy issues, and essentially on an empty stomach. I consumed 3 1/2 clif bloks*(I had to spit on out because my tummy was not ready for food yet), and 2 endurolyte pills.

Finisher photo from the race. How was I not looking at the camera?

Pack Monadnock offers a sunshine start at 8:30am. I opted for that as I had no idea if I could get to the base of the mountain within 2 hours and would rather not chance it. I was amazed by the number of early starters, and suspect several just wanted to start early to be done earlier. The 30 minutes was added to our official time. Right before the whistle, my friend Laurie said, no big deal just a 15 minute mile and we'll do great. Listening to that, and knowing the last time I ran 10 miles was in April 14th and that was very flat. As I hadn't warmed up before the race. I treated the first mile as a warm up, and kept my spreed slow as well. At some point Laurie and I realized we were going at about the same pace, catching up, passing and then catching up again. I asked if she minded if I ran with her, I'm an introvert. So it's easier to ask if someone wants to put up with me, than worry the whole time that I'm a burden.

Selfie with Laurie!

Asking was the best decision of this race! Laurie and I had a great time chatting the whole way, encouraging each other and taking pictures, pointing out the sights. The course is beautiful by the way. A race I thought I was going to run solo, and just power through to check it off my list, became a very pleasant and fun experience.

In hind sight I wished I had climbed to the top to get a picture up there but I'm not sure I would have been OK with stairs at that point. 

I danced too close to hypothermia at Sleepy Hollow, so I over dressed for this race. About 2 miles in Laurie helped as I took off one layer of shirt. The Skirt Sports Toasty Queen Skirt* were perfect for me. My legs stayed comfortable and warm the whole race. Which means for most normal people the leggings would have been way too warm. I'm a little sad that I'm still running in my winter gear in May, but the raw rainy cold is almost worse than the dry freezing cold.

There were some hills, or really only 1.

If you are up for the distance, consider this race next year. As a back of the packer the course was fantastic for support, the 30 minute early start helped as well. Even the fog added to the experience, though no promises you get cool fog next year.

Look at he scenic view! We were in the clouds, I mean fog.

Just posing with a sign, showing off my purple tights.

This was a challenging race due to the distance and near non-stop climb. It was also my first point to point race which lead to some confusion as to where my husband should wait for me. While I was running, he was having pancakes in Wilton with our boys. After the race we stopped by an adorable candy shop and the boy got to watch a machine cut and wrap fresh caramel.

Watching the caramel machine

On the same thread of doing crazy hard things, I'm rappelling off the Brady Sullivan Tower in Manchester, NH to raise money for the Youth Council, please donate to my page and help push me over the edge. More on that in an upcoming blog for sure!