Western Mass. adventure weekend

Last weekend, a crew headed out west to join our friends at Berkshire Nordic for a ski and to jump into the Mt. Greylock trail race. It was a pretty jam-packed weekend. Huge thank you to Notchview reservation for letting us spend the night there, and to Sheila Niedeck for all her organization before the weekend!

What follows are a TON of photos. Enjoy!

First, we rollerskied:

We also learned the ways of writing a Kate-length training log post: 

Then, we swam:

Then after some lunch and a little chill time, we went for what I described as a "walk." The theatre group chilling on top of the viewpoint started laughing when they heard how long it took us to walk to the top. "oh, yeah, we totally timed our hike too, and it was about that long." As we jogged past them on the way down, they shrieked and hid behind trees. I hope they were just being dramatic...

The crew!

Next we headed home, where the kids got some homework done (finals are coming up, after all), ate pizza, and made s'mores.

Notchview is so pretty under a sky like that. Good night for fireflies! Zyna taught us not to catch the ones near the ground, those are the ladies and they bite.

No time for capture the flag today, and a big day tomorrow! 

Sunday's adventure was a mountain race, up Mount Greylock and then 9 miles of technical trails to descend. A half marathon with 800m of climb, on a hot day, was definitely going to be a challenge! I didn't run, so got the change to take photos, climbing the mountain with poles and then going down a slightly option than the 9-mile version. Anyone who beat my time from last year earned free ice cream after the race; everyone else had to pay for their own ice cream. 

Phoebe crossing the visitor center at the top. Always smiling! 

Kate thoroughly enjoying herself

Ayden cresting the hill!

The ascent trail

Ben and Linden got to the top together; Linden took in the view

I cheered and gave out high fives, to our runners as well as everyone else in the race who wasn't wearing headphones, and then headed down the Gould Trail to catch the kids again with about two miles to go. They were universally less smiley at the second point, but seemed to cheer up after seeing me. 

Ben turns the corner

Phoebe cruising down the hill

Ayden seemed to be floating down the hill, and claimed to have a little Type I fun out there too

Linden thought he'd rather have twice the up and none of the downhill

Kate was not wearing this expression a second earlier

most forced smile ever

Or maybe this is the most forced smile ever

Taking to heart my comments that you can just let your arms flop all over as balance ballast on a downhill

After a good long well-deserved soak in the little stream by the finish, it was time for ice cream and then homeward bound. Sunburned, bug-bitten, muddy, tired, and full of happy thoughts of mountain days.

"where do you guys want your post-race photo?"

unanimously - 

"right here!"

Ayden and Ben eating their well-deserved free ice cream!