FKT: Steve Levandosky - Ware River Rail Trail (MA) - 2020-11-21

I discovered this trail back in March while looking for places to do socially distanced running. Came back again in October to explore the northern end. The goal today was to do the entire thing out and back at a steady/tempo pace. I mapped it out at 25.6 miles and that turned out to be spot on. Thought about trying to turn it into a marathon, but there didn't seem to be a natural way to do that without making the start or turnaround something strange. I was planning to do this last Sunday, but fell off a ladder Saturday and got pretty badly bruised and scraped so aborted that plan. Weather was cold at the start, low 30s, then warmed up into the 50s. Started out easy pace and then settled into a comfortable cruising pace. There were a few muddy spots from the recent rain, but overall the trail was pretty dry. Felt good through the halfway point and knew the return trip would be slightly downhill the whole way. Started to feel fatigued around mile 16 and just focused on pushing through to 20. Then just started counting down the miles from there. Last few miles felt tough, but managed not to bonk and even picked up the pace a little. Overall pace not too far off my road marathon PR, so pretty pleased with the effort. This is a fun, fast route, and I expect others will go a lot faster on it than I did, but I'm just happy that I was able to do what I did on it. For fuel, I drank Heed throughout and took 1 SIS gel every 4 miles.