What a beautiful weekend.

Saturday morning it was a little chilly waiting for the start of the Air Line Ghost Rail Run, but not as bad as I’d feared. I went into the race with low motivation. My last tempo run hadn’t gone well and I wondered why I was choosing to run 13.1 miles alone and freezing in a local, nothing-special race. When I’d signed up I’d hoped to run the half marathon at my Boston goal pace as a step on my way to Boston. Friday night I was feeling significantly less confident.

But the day dawned bright and sunny and 40 degrees didn’t feel as bad as it could. There was no mile marker for the first mile and by the time I saw the mile 2 marker I was ridiculously ahead of pace. I forced myself to slow down a little but still came in ahead of pace for the next several miles. By mid-race, I was running on target and at the mile 8 marker, I was feeling great and enjoying the day. The trail was beautiful–through woods and past water–and the footing was perfect: just slightly softer than asphalt. I thought I’d do another few miles at goal pace and then go all-out for the last two and bring it in way ahead of time.

The race had other plans. The last five miles were uphill, most especially the 9th mile. But all of them after that were mostly, if not completely, sloped gently in the wrong direction. I was later told that the first five miles were all downhill, which might explain those faster-than-expected times. But struggling through the end of that race was frustrating and disheartening as I saw one mile after another come in way over goal pace. I kept pushing harder–or trying to–and kept falling off-pace. The scenery was no longer enough to attract my attention, the day was getting warm, the jacket hot. My head was full of grumbly thoughts.

There was–too little, too late–a steepish downhill to the finish line and I pounded it as hard as I could. I can’t do math in my head while running but I knew I hadn’t hit my time. Still, I was feeling good about having stayed with it. I never quit, never went less hard than I thought I could. As I crossed the finish line, I saw the clock flash 1:45:01 and the miles of struggle dropped away. Somehow I had done it. Just.

There was food at the finish and a lovely awards ceremony in which almost everyone won something (including me). I realized what a good training run this had been for Boston after all, not just hitting my goal pace but having to face an uphill battle at the end of the run. Heartbreak Hill, here I come!

Sunday was one of those perfect days at the Gunks made more perfect by being unexpected. Climbing at the Nears in the morning we were bathed in a gentle autumn sunlight. Steve and I made quick work of our routes until mid-afternoon when I suddenly felt all ambition drain away. The day before’s race and the quick, though not rushed, pace we’d been climbing at took their toll and thoughts of leading Lower Eaves or Fly Again fled.

I told Steve I wasn’t feeling ambitious anymore and he suggested something long, fun, and easy to finish the day so we went to do one of my favorite end-of-day routes: City Lights to the to the top in one pitch. Unfortunately, it wasn’t free. Thinking there wasn’t a lot of difference between them, I detoured to Pas de Deux. There my low energy caught up to me and it was a different climber whining about being pumped with bad gear fifteen feet off the ground than the one who’d cruised up Inverted Layback like she had it wired earlier (OK, I do kind of have it wired).

Steve belayed patiently until I got some gear in and then I forced my way through the crux and ran up the rest of the long, extended pitch to the top enjoying what remained of the day. We rapped off in growing gloom and walked out into the sunset, hoping this wasn’t the last weekend this season but thinking it had been a hell of a good one if it was.

Sunday with Steve:
Te Dum, 5.7 (P1: Steve, P2: Dawn)
Inverted Layback, 5.9 (P1 & 2: Dawn)
Birdland, 5.8 (P1: Steve, P2: Dawn)
Walter Mitty, 5.8 (Steve)
Pas de Deux, 5.8 (P1 & 2: Dawn)