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Good morning, America, how are ya!?
Owls hooting, woodpeckers tat-a-tat, sweet bird song serenade, and my first red newt of the year….great morning for the Hoctathon!
Run high, run happy!
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This was another beautiful trail however my legs didn’t agree. I definitely have a lot of work to do to get into trail running shape. Thankfully @DamianClemons needed to get in a lot of hills today so he would run back to check on me giving him some extra miles, lol. I was slow and steady but I finished strong.
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What a great day to participate in the group run! 
Great chatting and catching up. Been missing these group runs 
I had a fantastic time bringing up the rear with my self-paced hike 
Glad I was able to recover someone’s water flask 
Sadly no many mushrooms 
bit dry I suspect and early in the season
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Great to complete the challenge with this group run. I thoroughly enjoyed running with @stephen-jesch, @ks_eggs, and @BrianH who kept us running at a good clip and helped problem solve tricky trail intersections when we missed the Run-Go directions because we were talking too much. Even though it was pretty hot the course is mostly shaded and is beautiful. Thank you @adamengst and @heathercobb3 for the water melon at the finish.
Photo curtesy of Adam Engst
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Had a great time today on the group run/hike and with my dear friend Marie and many others! Yet another fantastic course - I loved it and definitely want to cross country ski the area this winter. Kudos to the club for providing the cleanest port-a-potty ever! Many thanks to Adam, Tonya, and Dennis for waiting for us and for the watermelon!
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This was one of those “good as it gets” runs. Friends all around me, wonderful trails winding through the woodsy woods, just enough breeze to beat the heat, feeling strong and confident, bird song, blue skies.
A mile or so from the end, someone mentioned lemonade, and someone else mentioned coffee mixed with milk and cocoa powder and sugar as a recovery drink, and I started to feel like maybe it was time to stop running soon. I was looking forward to the lovely downhill to the finish on trail Y1. French fries came up, and breakfast sandwiches. Y6 had the tiniest uphill and it seemed like it would never end. Finally Y1. And then Adam had watermelon at the end. So refreshing!
On the way home, we stopped at Bigsby’s for fresh veggies and fruit (super good peaches!). We also got take-out Jamaican at the food truck just east of Bigsby’s on the other side of Route 13, so that was my yummy recovery meal.
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Newt-apalooza!
I started a Hoctathon loop shortly after 6 AM so I would finish in time to join the group run for a second loop afterwards. Despite the heat wave this past week, there had been no rain where I live in Cicero. Apparently, a different story at Hammond Hill. The course was just softened up perfectly but the gooey morning humidity engulfed me, along with gnats, mosquitoes, and flies every time I stopped or moved too slow - which was often, because from the bottom of Hammond Hill Road to the yellow gate I counted 33 red newts! Found another 14 the rest of the way! I photographed each one so I could count them again later to make sure. Here is one of my favorites:
Second loop was much less humid with far fewer insect attacks and I still saw a half dozen or so red newts. I enjoyed meeting all the other Challengers at the run. Thanks to Adam for the watermelon at the finish. Also love the shirt - first purple one amongst hundreds of others over the years!
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Congrats on completing the Challenge! I know your not really done yet though.
It was great meeting you, Keith and Steve. Really enjoyed the run.
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Having great fun running the challenge with Barb Coon! How she loves the plants ! I love her excitement over every find! So glad I carried water today ! I have been feeling the heat! What a gorgeous run! We loved it! Fun to begin with 20 challengers! And so happy Adam and Tonya waited to give us watermelon !!! So appreciative !!! FLRC is such a creative and supportive club!!!
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This was part of my trail challenge day, so here are the links to all of my posts from the day: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
I made a plan to do the trail challenge just as soon as I’d processed what @amy-dawson did while I was on a business trip. She did a great job with the tarmac challenge and kept it a nice secret 'til I started looking at her completions stack up on the Activity Log. She’s so inspiring to me! I wouldn’t have run this challenge today without that nudge, but I’m so glad that I did. Hammond has so many trails and it was nice to get to know them better because of this! I walked a bunch of the uphills segments, and the humidity was oppressive (needed to change my shirt), but this was quite enjoyable. I was glad to get the longest run out of the way first.
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I was wide awake at 4:00 this morning and decided it was a good day for a pre-workday Hoctathon. One cup of coffee was enough for a runners high, and I soon found myself floating uphill at a good clip as soon as we had enough sunlight to leave my headlamp in the car.
Most of the run was smooth sailing except when the sun flashed in my eyes and I ate dirt courtesy of one of the many B3 roots. That final downhill on Y1 is one of my favorite trails to run! The best part is that the potential ankle injury I was nervous about last week seems to have resolved itself — I didn’t feel anything resembling a torn posterior tibial tendon.
There’s still a few turns and intersections that I’m not too sure about — I still rely on RunGo for the middle 3-4 miles. For some reason the voice cues were working just fine until they weren’t. The real-time map was accurate but the voice stopped speaking, causing me to miss a turn and add 0.5 miles of an unnecessary out-and-back on Y4. I couldn’t make the voice come back on for the rest of the run. Has anyone else had this issue? I know it’s not user error or anything with the RunGo settings, but maybe an issue with the iPhone itself. @adamengst I subtracted the time I spent off course according to Strava, but if that’s not kosher I’ll add it back in through Webscorer.
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Nope, it’s totally fine to subtract time off course. And note that you don’t have to cover the ground with your entire body. 
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It was a lovely day for a hike on the Hammond Hill Hoctaton course. We did both loops backward. Following the RunGo map, rather than the spoken instructions. Lovely wildflowers, a smattering of raindrops, deer, woodpeckers, and newts.
Only two more Challenge courses to go!
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Following a quick Duck Trails session I made it up to the Hammond parking lot without much time left to finish the Tough Trail Challenge within 12 hours elapsed. (You can read my July 4th Duck Trails post for the explanation.) By the time I scanned the Hoctothon sign I had to finish in no more than 1 hour 33 minutes to make the 4:01 p.m. deadline. I knew this would be a stretch in the heat, with 20 miles on my legs already since 4:01 a.m. I honestly didn’t know if I’d make it, but figured I’d at least record the completion to hopefully win the HHH sign for logging the most runs.
Higher up in the hills and under tree cover the heat wasn’t too bad. Both lower appendages were cooked though. I quickly found myself hiking the uphills and making up lost time on the downs. One of the funnest local trail sections to run is the gate-to-gate segment from Hammond Hill Road down B1 and the snowmobile trail to Canaan Road.
The Y8 climb always wears on me, and on the hike up I was continuously checking my watch to make sure I was ahead of 10-minute pace. After the turn onto Y5 the course is pretty easy the rest of the way (except for the technical B3 loop). I’d just have to limit the walking and I’d make it.
Thankfully RunGo had no issues today, so no need to think about any of the turns. I walked some on B3 because I was paranoid that I’d faceplant on a root and derail the day’s effort. Perhaps it was PTSD from when I wiped out on B3 two days earlier and tore up my lower leg.
It wasn’t until two miles to go and 23 minutes to do it that I truly knew the TTC completion was in the bag. When I scanned the finish sign it was 11 hours 55 minutes elapsed, with a sub-5-hour cumulative run time. I was sure glad to only be running 5 courses today instead of all 10. Now I gotta find a day for the Tough Tarmac.
I forgot to take a finish line pic so here’s one with Joel after I got home.
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I saw your runs on Strava so headed over to the activity log – indeed you had completed the TT Challenge! Noticing the timing of when you started the HHH, and the time it took, I wondered if you had planned it to just be clever with bookending the 12 hours perfectly (in which case you have more trust in your pacing predicting than I ever could), or if something had delayed you. Congrats on a great challenge and finish!
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I had the same thing with the voice directions stopping mid run yesterday on the FH Fox course
Thanks! Such is the challenges that come with minimally responsible parenting.
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I encourage those having issues with the RunGo app to report the problems to RunGo, telling them what platform you’re using, what version of the app, and what you experienced. Perhaps if they get enough reports, they’ll be able to figure out what the problem is.
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Today was a good day to visit Hammond Hill. Temps were a little cooler than the past couple of days, I had my phone armed and ready to go with Run Go directions and I had printed out the step by step instructions as back up. I even put on my lucky bumblebee socks, so nothing could go wrong.
A few people are in the know that I attempted this course last week and, due to phone issues, I took a wrong turn onto the wrong red snowmobile trail after getting on Blue 1 and wound up waaaaaaay off course and down the other side of Hammond Hill Rd. Today, my phone was in the right space/time/dimension and I celebrated the moment of turning onto the correct red snowmobile trail with a giddy photo moment. 
The rest of the course was uneventful. It was just a beautiful day to be out in the forest and I got to know some paths that I was not as familiar with. When I finished, my Run Go told me I went 10.8 miles so I’m scratching my head at that but… I’m happy to have gotten this one done!
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