I started at the McAfee Trailhead parking lot after sleeping at the John Spring shelter the night before. I started around 730am with the temp around 30F. Luckily, I like running in cold weather so after a couple of hours I was able to take off my windbreaker and keep it in my pack for the rest of the run. I carried 1L of water to start with, and had another 1L flask with a filter. Luckily with the colder temps, I only ended up needing to stop to filter twice. I had only hiked the section to McAfee the previous week so everything else on this route was new to me. I decided to run clockwise to get Dragon's Tooth and the run up North Mountain out of the way earlier in the day. The route up DT was slow and technical and it took me a couple minutes to find the scramble to the top of the peak- but checking out the views from the top was well worth the scramble. I filtered at the stream across from the next parking lot, but wished I had done so along the trail before reaching the parking lot. North Mountain was the only monotonous park of the route for me, other than some excitement from a trip over an unseen rock hiding in the leaves. Coming off North Mountain I filtered again before crossing the bridge to one of the pastures where sadly, I think my beanie fell out of my pack (RIP beanie & sorry earth for unintentionally littering). Around 21-22 miles in I started making a strange wheezing noise when I exhaled. I don't think this affected my running or pace at the time... but probably contributed to the flu-like symptoms I got 2 days later. It was very tempting passing Tinker Cliffs, seeing so many people lounging and picnicking that I almost threw away my watch just to lay down, enjoy the views, and eat the burrito that my body probably needed at this point. But instead, I reminded myself that I liked running and went along, kicking through the deep leaves and smiling thinking of how joyous it was as a kid jumping into leaf piles. By the time I got to McAfee, I had learned a valuable lesson about myself- that even hunger pains wouldn't bring me to eat a cold burrito that really was the previous days forgotten lunch and that I should instead just pack more cookies on long runs. By the time I got back to the parking lot it was 4:15pm and I was happy I wasn't going to need the headlamp I'd been carrying.
For nutrition- I started the morning with two semi-frozen chocolate chip cookies that were planned to be post run cookies, but looked way more appetizing than the banana that was supposed to be my breakfast..... so, the banana went into my pack along with several gels, some clif blocks, whatever the sesame seed things are in the REI checkout lanes, homemade rice balls (sticky rice with coconut milk, chia seeds and blueberries), orange skratch labs drink mix, and a small rice and bean burrito that I kept telling myself I would eat at the next stop or peak but ultimately ended up just being along for the ride.
I really enjoyed this route and hope to find the time to try the dualathon when it's a bit warmer outside.