Lazy weekend

My wife and I ran an easy 6 miler on Saturday morning, and then I pretty much goofed off for the rest of the weekend. I had been planning to go longer, but I was tired and sore from workouts earlier in the week, so I decided that the easy 6 my wife was planning was enough for the day. Sunday was a much-needed rest day. The hardest work I did on Sunday was going outside to grill some steaks in the rain. I'm curious about the course conditions for the Vermont 50, which was yesterday.

My wife is tapering for the Leaf Peeper's Half Marathon next Sunday. I ran just under 1:38 in that race last year - my fastest half since I turned 40 in 2002, and I ran just over 1:30 in 2000 while training for the NYC marathon. But, this year, a sub-2:00 time would be a miracle and I'm not running the half. There's just no point in paying money to run a super-slow half marathon.

However, that does open another option for me. My wife's race is Sunday and one of my favorite races is on Saturday - the Stark Mountain Hill Climb. This is done at the Mad River Glen ski area. MRG has a single-chair chairlift that serves some of Vermont's wildest skiing - no snowmaking, no grooming, lots of trees, and lots of steeps. The race starts at the base of the single chair and finishes at the top of the lift. But, there is no defined route to the top. The only goal is to get there as fast as possible using any route you want. I've done the race twice before, and for me, it's really a power-hiking event. But, I have to mail in my app today or I'll be too late. The last time I did it, the upper half of the mountain had a light coating of snow, and that's a possibility for this coming weekend.

Autumn is really arriving in VT right now and this week is going to be cool and damp. Our first higher elevation snowflakes of the season may arrive by Thursday morning.