Loon Mtn Race

Loon Mountain Race in Lincoln, NH
July 7, 2019
This race is part of the USATF Mountain Series, I ran as a Gate City Strider.

I'm aware I haven't written about Mt. Ascutney, but Loon just happened yesterday and I have it fresh in my mind.

Thanks to an amazing offer from a friend with a place in the region, instead of driving up the night before or the morning of the race, we went up Friday evening and spent the weekend relaxing by one of the smaller NH lakes.

While the time was relaxing, it didn't come without snags that wouldn't happen at home. Eating on a strange schedule, eating too much sugar(roasted marshmallows are a favorite food), and not enough sleep. The night before the race, the children had a rough moment of homesickness and missing Moxie, their dog. I think I got 3 hours of sleep that night, as we had to get up super early for the race.

Before we left I had 1 waffle as I don't like to run with a full stomach, or even partly full stomach. I knew I was dehydrated and had struggled all weekend to drink water. I mention all this so you know where I was at once we got there.

Arriving at Loon, the kids were a bit bouncy, hungry and tired. Husband was in the same state. Thankfully it wasn't long between check in and race start. Once I was on my way the family headed out to find breakfast.

The views from this race were just amazing.

I just wasn't feeling this race. I wasn't excited, I wasn't nervous, I had thought this would be the highlight of my weekend, but I knew it wouldn't. This was just a step along the way to get Mountain Goat status. I was under trained, not to the extent that I was worried about injury or getting a DNF, but enough to know this would be hard. I told my husband to plan on me taking 3 hours to finish.

Jumpy stones, but unlike my LARPing days, the penalty for failure was wet feet.

Every time I looked at the course map, I read it but never fully processed trails. The first few miles were pleasant in the trails with shade. I ran some, I walked some, I skipped some. I tried to keep my feet dry until I failed to and decided to embrace it. I had moments where I had one of those video game power ups and for 15-30 seconds I leaped up a hill rock to rock, occasionally splashing in the muddy puddles. This part of the race was pleasant. I should run more trail races.

The first aid station felt like it took forever to get to. But I saw a familiar face, took a moment to drink water, and refill my bottle. The next section would be alot more sun. I have decided my least favorite trails are sandy gravel ones that sneak into your shoes. I had failed to glue my gaiter hook and loop stickers to my sneakers so I went without. These trails were slippery but not like mud.

The next section was sunnier and I had an incredibly difficult crossing of a ski hill. Walking across a steep hill, my ankles were pissed. I eventuality walked sideways as that was just easier.

Then we hit the lower speak easy. This was the not boss hill. It was challenging, I took breaks. I enjoyed the view. I knew I wasn't getting any kind of decent time, so I just enjoyed the hike.

Not Upper Walking Boss

The next turn was back to a sandy, gravelly hill. On this hill the men, who started the race 75 mins after then women started to pass me. I tried to be aware of where they were to keep out of the way and stopped a few times to let them pass. At this point I was just hoping for the final aid station, I was going to gu(but then forgot and just did clif blocks the whole time). I wanted a full water bottle before I hit the walking boss.

As I got close to the aid station there were spectators cheering us on. I made a mistake. I filled my water bottle but the bucket was empty and I topped it off from anther bucket, that unexpectedly had the electrolyte drink in it. I don't know what they were offering but it was some horrible tropical chalky disgusting mix. The chalkiness made me worry about dairy and I spent several minutes debating if I should drink anymore. Because of this mistake I minimized how much I drank(it was horrible and I guess I wasn't that dehydrated as I suspected I was as if I had been dehydrated it would have tasted fine.) I did a good job remembering my electrolyte pills.

Beginning of the UWB.

I was also passed by spectators on the course, which was odd and I hope they went an easier way up to that point. I saw several familiar faces before getting on the trail that leads to the upper walking boss. This trail was all down hill and I walked it. Trying to avoid being run over by male runners flying down it. The steepness of it made me uncomfortable running much of it and I was exhausted. My goal was to finish without injury and this trail screamed injury to me.

The view was almost worth walking up this hill(UWB).

At the base of the Upper Walking Boss I took a picture with the sign, paused a few moments, before crossing the checkpoint and starting the hill. Wow, it was brutal. I would take anywhere from 5-20 steps before needing to stop and just recover. I took steps backwards just to use different muscles, I did sections on hands and feet, oddly after those I'd get fist bumps and high fives from the men that passed me. I didn't put that together until after when I was telling my husband about it. I flipped off the signs and chatted a bit with the woman who would sit down every 30 ft or so to stretch her bum. It was hard, seriously hard. Not even fun hard, just hard. I worried about missing footing and tumbling downward. I worried about bumping other runners. I knew I'd make it to the top and I knew I'd finish, but I had little concern about time. I spent a moment admiring the view. It felt like it went on forever. I kept checking my watch to see how far I hadn't gone.

There were two signs on the boss.

Nearly at top.

As I neared the top and the finish line a spectator said sprint when I got to a person. I grumbled back at them, there was no way I could sprint. I was toast. I had left everything on that hill. I tried to run over the finish line but I was done, and walked myself over those mats. I had done it.  Mountain race Five was complete!

Finished!

I looked around, asked someone to take a picture, drank some more plain water. I'm guessing that the electrolyte drink was dairy free, as I wasn't literally dead.

The trail to the gondola rides down.

The next step was to get to the family, who rode the gondola up the mountain. The joke about the mountain races is, just because the race is over doesn't mean the miles are over. I walked the sunset loop which was a crazy steep down hill follow by a short up hill to get to the gondola place and find the family. We chatted, I drank more water, and grabbed an orange slice. As there wasn't much to do and I was toast, we got in line for the gondola. It was then that I remembered I was afraid of heights and the last gondola I was in I tried to jump out of into a tree.

The boys told me the ride up was scary but fun. They warned me that the gondola goes fast at first and then slows down and that when it passes a pole there is a bump. They were right and I was crazy nervous as the gondola speed down the first incline before slowing and bump-bump. This ride all the windows were open so we had a nice breeze and while we slowed a bit the ride never came to a stop. Apparently on the ride out it was like being left in a hot car. Aside from minor moments of panic, I enjoyed the ride down. Then it was time to walk to the car, drive to the lake house, pack up everything and head home.

Pace and heart rate chart really shows the effort of the UWB.

I failed all levels of post race recovery.  I failed to remind my husband to bring my recovery drink to the top of the mountain, I failed to lie down and do a leg drain, I failed to eat much of anything all day with the packing and the driving. Then dinner decided to take longer than normal to cook. The first meal I ate was at 7pm.

I'm glad I'm done with Loon. I have no interest in running the race again or as I overheard someone say extreme hiking the race. It was an experience and I'm glad I can say I did it, but I don't need to repeat it. It's funny how little things can taint an experience. Spectators for the race were supposed to get discounted gondola tickets. As I expected it to take me 3 hours to finish, there was no rush to the top for my family and they went to breakfast. When they got to the mountain to buy tickets, they discovered they missed the discounted tickets by 15 minutes(at 10:07am) and would have to pay full price. This was never posted or mentioned in anything leading up to the race. I doubt the organizers even knew there was a cut off for this discount.  It's a minor thing, but it just rubbed me wrong and it's a big reason why I won't go back. That said the organizers of the race, ran a good race, they were great with communication, registration was easy and the aid stations were well stocked. My only issue was with Loon and a rude employee, likely amplified in my head by hunger and exhaustion.

I didn't bother with editing this write up, so there will be mistakes in the words chosen, the grammar and spelling. Thank you for seeing past it to get to this point.

Next race is Greylock Mountain Labor Day Weekend and my official mountain goat completion.