First of all, here is Lupine, judging all of you....
The Quarry Road Summer Race series was one of our favorite parts of the summer...with the exception of the race on the night before NJ and the week we were in Lubec, we went to every race and ran. The kids ran all the funruns and I did the series schedule of 3ks, 5ks, and 8ks. The final race of the series was the 8k, which I have mentioned many times before as the most difficult race I have ever run. Uphills like crazy. Switchbacks. Rocks. Mud. Narrow trails. More switchbacks. More uphills. Just a very psychological race. At any rate, I was pretty nervous for the final race, but I set my personal record at it...I dont know what it was, but I just felt great and I felt like I was actually 'racing.' It was nice....haha. Here is me post-race...
The guy in the grey shirt is a man named Mark, and he (and another girl named Jayne) were at pretty much each race...it is funny how you get talking to people each week, and this was true for me with many folks because you end up sort of running 'together' in packs of people who are comparable to your running speed. Mark was one of these people (and was Jayne) and each week it seemed Mark and I would sort of play cat and mouse with each other....but during this race, I made a pretty ambitious 'move' on one of the hills, and it paid off...I finished quite before he did. What is funny, also, about this is his comment at the end of the race (this will be funnier if you know me at all ....and you know all my idiosyncrasies...of which there are hundreds...and how I tend to fiddle with things....). Since it was humid and I sweat SO MUCH, I was scratching at my socks...retying my shoes....fiddling with my shorts....scratching my back...etc. He was saying "jeez man...all you were doing was screwing around with yourself, fiddling all over the place...and I still couldnt catch you!" I must have annoyed him like I annoy everyone else in my life with this stuff...
Also, if you look towards the top of the picture you can see where the trail heads into the woods.....those are where the monster hills are...switchbacks and all....it is used as a championship XC ski course in the winter...they had some Olympic trial race or something here last year...it is pretty intense!
and look Dad....a yurt! This is a recent addition to the recreation area....I think in the winter it is used as a warming hut and a place to drink cocoa and coffee after sledding and skiing and snowshoeing...during the summer, it was where all the registration stuff took place....
The end of the season series...the first in a long list of ways you know that summer is nearly over......
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