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Mountain Day!

October 11, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
I woke up this morning to see that my former thesis advisor from Williams had forwarded his former advisees and an email from the president of Williams announcing (in rhyme) that today is Mountain Day! Mountain Day is a day celebrated at Williams, Mount Holyoke, Smith and a handful of other small colleges (though no others in the NESCAC, it appears), where the classes are canceled and students are encouraged to breathe again, get outdoors, and ideally, climb a mountain together! Williams, I'm proud to say, appears to have the oldest Mountain Day tradition dating perhaps to 1827, though its origins are shrouded in mystery. At Williams, the president sends out an email at the crack of dawn on one of the first three Fridays in October announcing it's Mountain and students awaken to the sound of the chapel bells being rung, heralding much mirth and rejoicing. Because it's spontaneous, no one has pre-existing plans to be out of town, and some of us have been known to play "Mountain Day roulette" -- that is, obsessively checking the weather forecast the night before and deciding that it looks promising enough that you can't put aside that problem set that was going to be due... Then everyone who's so inclined hikes several miles up trails for varying difficulties (none of you will be surprised to learn that I always opted for the no-trail bush-whacking option) and then gathers on Stoney Ledge for hot apple cider, a capella concerts, and giant game of WAAAA. It's probably the most delightful college tradition I've ever experienced.

If you're thinking this running-log post is turning into a long-winded not-so-subtle plug for GDS students to go to Williams, you're probably right (though as I mentioned, Holyoke and Smith are also options for some of you). It should be noted that our evil rival Amherst has no such delightful day off. But more to the point, I was inspired by this morning's email to do my own Mountain Day, albeit without cider, friends, or what any self-respecting Williams XC alum would truly consider a mountain. But I did the best I could, running up Summit Avenue in Brookline 6 times, which is widely known among the running community here as the best hill in the area. According to the November Project website, "Summit avenue is a street that goes up Corey hill in Brookline, MA. Bottom to top distance is little under 1/2 mile (.4 miles to be exact) of steepness and pain. Gradient varies from hard (~7%-8%) to my lungs are burning (~15%-16%) and it takes us anywhere from 3-4 minutes on average to get up there." For reference, I consider it to be roughly on par with Brandywine Street hill in Rock Creek Park (unofficially known as the hardest street-based hill in DC). I ran from the Summit Avenue street sign on Beacon to the second crosswalk at the top, which allowed me about half a minute of all-out sprinting at the summit. The highest point comes about 30m before the finish and it doesn't really slope down at all during that final dash.

My first one was solid, but not as hard as I wanted it to be. My second felt stronger, but it was the third that really gave me pride. I decided to play "The Blood of Cúchulainn" on my phone, otherwise known as "that song from Boondock Saints." This really took me back to Williams and put me in a good mood, not only because I saw the movie there sophomore year, but because it was playing over the loudspeakers at Little Threes that year and one of my friends made a video of that race with that as the soundtrack. I've watched this video a million times and it still gives me chills. It in, my teammates Neal Holtschulte and Stephen Wills come from behind to win the race and lead us to victory of Wesleyan and Amherst against all odds, salvaging our decades-long winning streak and uniting the team in everlasting glory. The video quality, I now realize, is awful either because a) it was raining, b) our assistant coach Dusty Lopez was cheering too enthusiastically to hold the video camera steady, or c) upload quality sucked in the mid-2000s. Nevertheless, it's the most inspiring video I know, probably for nostalgia reasons. It will probably only be of interest to Zeke and Griff (who were on the team 10 years later), but I'm posting it here anyway. For those who wish to see what a just-turned-20-year-old Matt Simonson looked like, I appear in a spontaneous Irish step dance afterward and prancing around exuberantly as we gather for our victory photo (3:17-3:27 and 3:47-3:49): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VegLJEFMRqQ

The effect of this song--and conjuring up the video in my mind--on my 3rd and 6th hill repeats will be apparent from the times:

3:14 (estimate - used a different finish line)
3:11
3:01
3:10
3:06
3:03

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the day started with me running 4 1/2 miles on the Esplanade with Julia Ernst, cruising across town 3-miles at a 7-minute pace to get to the hill, and then cooling down for another 5 miles afterward. Now I'm sore, but satisfied.

All in all, a great mountain day.