A few days ago, I had a curious self-realization about this blog. For all intents and purposes, each blog posting is my version of the classic “Shaggy Dog Story”. For my readers who don’t know what exactly a Shaggy Dog Story is, here is the Wikipedia definition:
“In its original sense, a shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax or a pointless punchline”
So, while off on a run today, a pretty routine run, which I hadn’t planned on blogging, a very minor punchline became apparent, so I thought I would do a short write-up on it. I only have one photograph in this posting, as I wasn’t really looking to write it up, until something curious happened…..
I went into today’s run with one thing in mind. It was a cool, pleasant Sunday afternoon, a week before the Vermont City Marathon, and I wanted to get outside, push myself over a modest distance, and enjoy the pleasures of mother nature. As I mentioned in my last post, I like to benchmark myself on early season runs, to check into my training, and to establish times to beat as the summer and fall progress. The run on Brooks Road (the right turn on a dirt road about a half mile past Breadloaf, before the final ascent to the Snow Bowl), from the Chatfield/Widow’s Clearing parking lot has long been one of my favorites for this purpose. It is a forest service road, with easy footing, and climbs in a series of short, moderately steep ascents, with long flat sections in between, leading to a 3.5 mile, slightly less than 700 ft vertical ascent.
Setting off from the bottom, the run is flat for about a quarter mile, then starts climbing, shortly thereafter. As I reached the end of the first mile, I suddenly saw two dogs bounding towards me off leash. Hearing their owner behind them shouting “Don’t worry – they don’t bite….” I reminisced over incidents when the next dog move was to lunge at me. Fortunately, these two where indeed only interested in having a good sniff of sweaty runner. But that isn’t really the shaggy dog story. What I did notice, was that I was running very well, so I began to wonder if I could match or improve upon my PR for the ascent. Sure enough, as I reached the end of the dirt road, I looked down at my watch, and noticed that indeed had ascended faster than ever before.
I don’t make a habit of posting times and speeds in this blog – because frankly I am not that fast, and I don’t want this to turn into just another training blog. That said, I also knew from past experience that I had never done this run, as a round trip, in less than an hour, and realized that with the downhill acceleration, I just might be able to accomplish this, so I turned, and headed back down the hill. Are you bored yet? Still waiting for the punchline?
The descent did indeed prove to put me on a pace to break the one hour barrier for this run, until about a half mile from the bottom, where I noticed a black blob in the distance. Another untethered canine perhaps? But no, it was my second bear sighting of the season. Now, I have two favorite bear sayings, pertinent to my running interests. The first adage goes “You don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your slowest friend”. But, since I was running by myself that wouldn’t do much good. The second one is “If you stop and take a picture of a bear, you run the risk of having the last shot on your camera be of the bear’s tonsils”. Hence, I have never had the chance to take a picture of one of these wonderful creatures while out running. This time was different; I was on a long broad straightaway, with a good line of sight, but still far enough away that I hadn’t startled the bear yet. So, I pulled out my cell phone, and took a shot, using the digital zoom, not thinking about my running goals for this run, as I finally got a bear picture on the trails. After convincing myself that I had a serviceable photo, I shouted kind words to to my ursine companion, a hundred yards or so away, and he calmly lumbered off into the woods, allowing me to complete my descent. At this point, my adrenaline was flowing, but I suspected that my goal of finishing under an hour had been squandered. Riding the adrenaline rush, however, I was indeed able to complete the run in 59:30, kicking it in. Now – here is the shaggy dog. My amazing bit of photography:
Yes, it is a bear
Feel free to click on the photo – if you expand it to full size, you will see that it is indeed a black, 4-legged creature.
Brooks Road on Google Earth
Altitude Profile for the ascent and descent of Brooks Road
This year’s never-ending winter seems to have loosened its grip – there are only a few stray patches of snow at the higher elevations, and my legs seem to be recovering from my first 26.2 in a year and a half, undertaken a week and a half ago. A lot of my friends ran in the Middlebury Maple Run this Sunday, but my legs didn’t feel recovered enough yet for a decent half marathon, so I decided to head out to one of my favorite runs – the ascent from the Falls of Lana trailhead, past Silver Lake, to the Goshen trailhead and returning. I know I have done this run countless times, and blogged it quite a few times as well. But, I almost always do this run as one of my first trail runs of the warm season. The long mornings in the treadmill in the depths of winter and a few months of all my outdoor running being on the roads is finally giving way to the best part of the running year. This particular run is a great way to test out my legs on a trail which isn’t as muddy as most of the single track trails in May, and I get to see how things feel when I start to mix some more serious hills into my running. Finally, it is fun to see how my times improve as the summer progresses, so this first trail run of the season will serve as a benchmark for later runs!
A few recent articles in Runners World have put Middlebury on the map as a great runners’ town, and for road runners, this is probably due to the popularity of the Maple Run, while the TAM gets a lot of good press for trail runners. As relative newcomers start to look for more adventurous terrain than the TAM has to offer, the Moosalamoo region, which this run is part of, offers a fun step up. There are trail races ranging from the challenging, but accessible (The Goshen Gallop, 6.6 miles) to the longer challenges (The Moosalamoo Ultra 14 or 36 miles) to the downright ridiculous (Infinitus – up to 888 miles over 8 days!) The run I am blogging today provides a nice introduction to trail runners interested in a little wilder than the TAM offerings! When I started enjoying this run, 10-15 years ago, I never saw another trail runner on while I was runnin, but now, it is rare that I don’t cross paths with other runners enjoying it.
The run starts at the Falls of Lana parking lot, the large lot on the right, just south of Branbury State Park. I just learned the origins of the name “Branbury” by the way. It is not the name of some famous settler, politician or benefactor – it is simply an amalgamation of Brandon and Salisbury – the two nearest towns. How creative……. I usually skip the short connector trail that heads diagonally up from the parking lot, instead heading north on the road towards Branbury for just a few yards, taking a right onto the gated forest service road which climbs steeply from the start, before leveling off and crossing under the penstock. What the heck is a penstock? I just happen to have the answer in a previous post. After a series of hairpin turns, the trail climbs relentlessly towards Silver Lake. I was concerned about how passable I would find the trail, as it is still early spring, and we had a few very windy days where a lot of trees got knocked down. Fortunately, the trail crews had already made short work of the many down trees, with the only sign being their trailside debris.
Trail Maintenance
Continuing up, I reached the shores of Silver Lake after a mile and a half. For most casual hikers, this is the point of the trip up from Lake Dunmore, but looking for higher mileage, and more climbing, I stayed on the trail, which after another short, steep climb, veered to the right to reach the high point, a few hundred feet above Silver Lake, at the Goshen parking lot. This lot has a bit of a bad reputation for car break-ins, so I rarely use it. I was comforted, however, to see a Forest Service vehicle parked there, perhaps providing a little deterrent to window-smashing wannabees.
Forest Service Patrol Car
At the far side of the parking lot, the obvious trail down begins, and after about a quarter mile, the right turn at the trail junction begins the descent to Silver Lake, in earnest. Running down this one section of true single track trail, I heard some scampering sounds in the woods, and reminded myself of the usual adage – “If you can hear it, it is just a squirrel”. However, at one point, I turned around and saw my first bear of the season bolting up the hill, a few yards behind me, and getting away from me as quickly as it could. My guess was that it was running away from whatever I was running away from. That said, it is always a rush to see these magnificent animals, and I stopped to watch it amble away, made all the easier by the lack of foliage at this altitude, this early in the season. Someday I will get a decent picture of one of my bear incidents!
As the bear disappeared into the forest, I resumed my run down the hill, reaching the Leicester Hollow trail, where I turned right, passing by a few groups of hikers, letting them know of what they had just missed. When the sign for the Silver Lake picnic area appeared on the left, I took it, coming to the bridge over the sluiceway bringing water down to Silver Lake from the Sucker Brook Reservoir, a mile or so away at higher altitude. Sometimes, this sluiceway is dry, as Green Mountain Power tries to collect the water in the higher reservoir to save it for high electricity demand in the summer months, I presume. The rush of the water told me that they had to let some out – I bet the reservoir is pretty full at the moment due to the sudden snow melt! I hope to run up there soon to see.
Roaring Sluiceway
From here, I ran along the shore of Silver Lake – a great place to take a dip during summer runs, and returned to the forest service road, for the high speed plunge back to my car. The footing was usually good enough to just let my legs cut loose, but some glute tightness the next day reminded me that this was the first serious downhill run of the season. Returning to my car, this ended up being about a 5.5 mile run, with about 900 feet of climbing and descent. Challenging, but not overly so, by Vermont standards at least. If you haven’t run up here – give it a try. It can also be a great place to put in a good workout in the heat of the summer – it is typically 5-10 degrees cooler there, between the shade and the swimming spots.
Finally, this is the beginning of the 10th year of this blog. I have some really fun “bucket list” runs in the planning, which I hope some of my friends can join me on. Hoping we all have a great summer!
Google Earth of the run
Altitude Profile
