Loon Mountain Race Report

Loony 

The Loon Mountain race has been heralded as one of the toughest races in America, and for good reason. The race has a slogan of "There's No Safe Word at Loon". This is a play on the masochistic nature of a 10K that climbs over 3,000' and ends with a quad searing final half mile on the infamous "Upper Walking Boss" a black diamond ski slope that takes souls in early July every year with its 48% grade. This year LMR drew well over 1,000 entrants from all over the US and some from abroad.

"Our Boss is Tougher Than Your Boss"

The race was split with males and females with the ladies going off about 45 minutes before the men. I arrived early to watch the start of the women's race and rub elbows with some of my old friends and teammates. Among them was Salming Athlete Jeremy Drowne of Plattsburgh, NY who was running Loon for the first time. We shared strategy and the best advice I could give him as a veteran of this event was "The shit isn't over after the boss". As it would turn out I led him astray with that because of the slight course variation this year which meant "The shit is over..exactly after the boss" I tried to conserve some gas going up and ended up finishing with a lot left to burn. This wasn't too big of a deal as I barely squeaked into the top 100. Jeremy however ended up taking home an age group and an impressive top 20! Even after my shitty advice!

Grinding my way up UWB

I felt great and PR'd the race by 3ish minutes, and I really am satisfied with that. My training base has been in preparation for Mountain 50 milers, so showing up and sending it in a short race like this was totally cool with me. 

"Steady Pace is the best way to get that PR"

This year with such a large turnout The Race Directors had their hands full, but they pulled off yet another successful LMR race to which I am grateful for. I am also very appreciative of the volunteers who came out in force to make this acidoticRACING event another for the record books. 

My shoe choice was pretty easy and Jeremy and I both toed the line in the Salming OT comps, a shoe that is currently dominating the OCR world. The deep Michelin Lugs on a light low and flexible platform make an absolute beast of a mountain racing shoe!

The Salming OT Comp is not only and OCR legend but also 

a mountain racing must have!

Moving Forward

Today was a training day in the White Mountains of NH, with Teammate and Mountain Goat Eva Johnson. She let me tag along on a 23 mi adventure with nearly 5,000' of vertical. We tagged all of the Bonds from Lincoln Woods even despite this heat wave!

Loving on the Bond Cliffs!

Happy Trails My friends.

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Salming America

Promo Code: HAMILTON19

Joe Viger Photography

acidoticRACING

Loon Mountain Race

Infinitus 88k...errrr.... Marathon Race Report & Mental Health

Well your boy is a bit behind on the blogging, but I have a short period of time to tell anyone who will listen about my follies at Infinitus put on by Andy Weinberg and The Endurance Society. I have been a member of The Endurance Society for a number of years (actually since their inception) yet never actually made it to one of these epic events. Not known for unreasonable hype, The Endurance Society puts on world class events in disciplines such as skyrunning, mountaineering, ultrarunning, and endurance cycling. My first attempt to race one of these events was the infamous Frigus snowshoe 50K, where I was fit, and ready, but left my snowshoes and race kit in New Jersey of all places by accident and missed the event. Needless to say I was pretty pumped to get to the line for Infinitus which draws a huge social media following with its 888K multi day event with finishers in the single digits.

88k err Marathon?

In the days leading up to the race I had numerous life challenges and obligations that caused me to drop from the 88k distance down to the marathon. My training had me prepared for 54+ miles of mountain running, having done a 20+ mile trail run once a week for nearly six weeks leading up to race day. Regardless of my physical prime my mental readiness was shaky at best. If you don't know, my mother is fighting a terminal illness, and I have been away from my family a lot more with a last minute schedule change for the summer, where I went from a seemingly normal 10hr Mon-Fri job to standing 48 and 72 shifts. Picture a high seas firefighter/EMT/cop and that's what I have been up to. Andy seamlessly transferred my name to the marathon for which I was very thankful. With a heavy mind I showed up on race day...

Race Day...SHIT!

As any anxiety sufferer will understand, I set all of my gear out the night before. Goshen, VT where the race is held is about an hour and a half from my home in Sandgate, VT so I wanted to roll out the door. My pre-mixed home made gel packs consisting of VT maple syrup, organic honey and sea salt were loaded in the fridge and mixed to perfection. My Hammer Perpetuem was in another water bottle, and my caffeinated Tailwind was in another...watch out...I'm ready.

My drive was more relaxed than ever because I had very few worries, I knew I could race marathon distance no problem since I was planning on double that distance. Arriving in the parking area at Blueberry Hill Nordic center I reached for my bag of race gear.....yeah...I left all of that shit on my counter top about 60 miles South. F U C K....it seems that leaving critical shit behind for these events is my favorite party trick. In full panic mode i raced around asking people for gels or whatever they could spare, and no one had anything. I ran to my truck and yanked my bicycles hard bottle out of the cage and stuffed it into my race vest, which is designed for nice soft flask bottles that wont bruise your ribs over the course of 50 miles. So I have a way to hydrate, but zero fuel. A marathon with 5,000' of climbing will require some fuel. I found an aid station that had a bunch of sticky twizzlers and scrounged up a ziplock bag....SEND IT!

"Better get on the road quick and forget all my shit!"

Confidence and Adaptation

So I was slightly shaken up by the events leading up to the start but tried very hard not to let it wreck my state of mind. I kept thinking about all of the real world problems that happen around me and this is merely a comedy show. At the start I went out extremely conservatively and didn't really know where I stood in the field since it was a mixed distance mass start. I found myself climbing extremely comfortably and losing ground on the descents. The race course was MUDDY and very heavily trafficked. I spent a stupid amount of miles avoiding wet shoes and after about 5 miles decided it was a waste of time to try to keep my shoes light and dry.

8K 

At the 8K mark I was greeted by the RD and volunteers and told that I was in second place in the Marathon, and first place was standing at the aid station next to. I took off trying to force him to leave earlier than he wanted hoping it would give me some sort of edge. he next several miles were relatively flat and the first place runner clearly had superiority over me in speed alone. I needed to catch him on the climbs, which I did and then lost again when a flat or downhill section came about. At ten miles, I knew I would have to really turn it on to try to hang onto the leader. Right as that thought crossed my mind I fell in a water crossing and really hurt my left hip. I walked for about a mile after that trying to loosen up the injury which eventually got better and I could run again. 

Into the 8K Aid Station

Taking the lead back even if short lived

Downhill 

I gave up second place on an extended downhill to a previous Infinitus winner who cruised past me like I wasn't moving at all. I shortly caught him on a climb and made what felt like a comfortable gap. Stopping at the final aid station around 22 miles he came in about 30 seconds after me. He pulled te same shit I did to the leader at the 8K mark and I never saw him again. I kept a steady and relentless pace to the finish and finished third overall. Andy told me this was an extremely close and quick race given the mucky conditions. I was pretty satisfied with a podium finish regardless. 

INFINITUS MARATHON STRAVA

Wrap up

This race was awesome! The swag was on par with my buddies at Nor'east Trail Runs, and the course design was epic. I really am thankful that  dropped to the Marathon, even though I think I would've fared well in the 88k...If I had my gear! In hindsight, I would have utilized a better cleaning and draining shoe like the Salming OT Comp instead of using my trust Trail T5's. I suppose you live and learn.

Happy To Be here with these strong competitors

Mental Well Being

Over the last few weeks I have been under a dark shit cloud, and did something I have never done and sought after some help in the form of traditional counseling. While I am not an optimist in most scenarios, sometimes it's good to be able to bundle all of your life stressors for someone to review. While I won't elaborate on all of my complicated issues at home, work, and my other home I will say that we all need a little help sometimes. If that help doesn't come on a high summit somewhere, the bottom of a good bourbon, in the saddle of a bike, or whatever your poison is I strongly suggest you don't write off getting help. If this works out well for me I will likely be writing more about mental fitness in the future vice physical fitness.

Cedar Rock In Arlington, VT Short runs with a lot of value help the morale!

Onward!

Since my climbing legs served me well at Infinitus this year, I will be returning for my third Loon Mountain Race Presented by Acidotic Racing! REMEMBER THERE IS NO SAFE WORD AT LOON!

Happy Healthy Trails...

 My boy is pretty pumped his dad can still hang at the long distances.

Links

Salming

DISCOUNT CODE: HAMILTON2019

Acidotic Racing

Loon Mountain Race

The Endurance Society

Running Swedish in 2019 First Impressions of the Greyhound

After a few weeks of contemplation I showed up late to the party in re-signing a contract with Salming Running. My main reasons for being unsure as to whether I wanted to take on ambassadorship were my lack of real performance driven events in 2018. While Ethan Allen 24HR was surely my pinnacle talking point of 2018, the truth is I'm not extraordinarily competitive, except on Strava and maybe Words With Friends. With a slight nudge from fellow cold weather runner and all around stud athlete Jeremy Drowne (Co-Owner of Kinetic Running in Plattsburgh, NY) I agreed to fly the Salming flag this year, hoping that my contributions last year were worthwhile for a company I really believe in.

Infinitus 88K

The Endurance Society's Instagram page messaged me last week about their epic Frigus race, with varying distances up to 50k on snowshoes. Since I was reluctant to pull the trigger on Nor'East Trail Runs Snowshoe 50k, which was today (3-3-19) I figured I certainly wasn't fit enough for Frigus a week prior. I was fortunate to race two snowshoe series races with N.E. Trail Runs this winter and led the series standings in points for a short time with one win and one 3rd overall finish. 

Trying to stay goal oriented and keep myself honest with forward progress in training I signed for the Infinitus 88k, on June 1st of this year. The buildup period will be a steep ramp but I believe hat I am fit enough to show up ready on race day. Playing "Strava detective", I found that this course if 54 miles with around 9,000' of climbing. Training updates will likely follow this post in the near future.

The NEW Salming Greyhound

"The Master McGrath of Road Shoes"

Style Built for the Long Haul!

With minimal miles (5 to be exact) on these shoes I will be giving my first impressions, and will follow up further down the road with more details concerning durability, and how they perform on varying distances and speeds. As a trail runner I generally dont get too excited about the pavement pounders in my quiver, however these things are very sexy looking! The last is fully structured unlike the "sock like" fit that is more common in road shoes of late. The Recoil foam cushioning, coupled with the Vibram rubber outsole look to be ready for a large amount of miles. I am a very big fan of having a full rubber bottom, which seems to be one of the first things to go when a shoe company wants to shed weight. At 9.8oz. this shoe isn't necessarily a lightweight, but it seems to make up for it in the plush ride it offers. A 6mm drop and very thick stack height of 28mm keep you connected to the ground, but also make each step light and energetic. Additionally the toebox feels wider than some of the other Salming shoes I have worn (OT Comp, Trail5, Distance5, Enroute), which is helpful to not need to size up a half size or so, since Salming isn't widely carried in retail stores at the moment.  As my Greyhounds and I get acquainted I will continue to update those who may be interested. 

Style is Everything, right down to the insoles!

Five Miles on the sidewalks of Newburyport, MA tonight

HAPPY TRAILS!

Salming Greyhound

BE SURE TO USE DISCOUNT CODE: HAMILTON20 at checkout 

Kinetic Running Plattsburgh, NY

The Endurance Society

Nor'East Trail Runs