So, to refresh, the deal is if you do 6 of the 9 trail races you get a participation award, and they take your top 5 times and use the rankings to give "Dirty Dozen" awards to the top 12 men and top 12 women. Last year I was # 7.
It was a dreary day and a bit on the chilly side. With all the rain we've had, I knew the trails were going to be a mess. It didn't rain much during the race but it did rain off and on the day before.
I'm not a serious trail runner, obviously. I like trail running, on a nice, sunny and mild fall or spring day, with dry trails and good footing. The slippery mud is not my idea of a good time.
Last year I finished the 5.4 mile race in a little over an hour, and was the 23rd woman. I was hoping to improve on that a bit this year. Of course, if I wanted a better place in the standings, I should have done the 10.8 mile race, since not as many women run that (this year, just 18 women) and even if I finished last I would get a better ranking than I could in the 5.4 mile race. But I just wasn't up for 10.8 miles of slogging around in the mud. This race course is relatively easier than the Ault Park trail race. The hills are not as steep. But it's a lot muddier this year than it was last year. So my biggest goal was as usual just to finish without doing any damage to myself.
Wore my CW-X capri tights and my shirt from Friday's Kilgour 5k, and my hat from Milwaukee. Added a long-sleeved shirt (from Chickamauga Memorial marathon) which I removed after my warmup and tied around my waist. On my feet, went with the Salomon trail shoes. No more indoor agility going to take place in these babies.
Got to the park about 30 minutes before the race start. Picked up my number and went for a jog around the oval. Watched the 10.8 mile race go off (they start 15 minutes early) while I waited on line for the bathroom. Soon it was time. Brenda W., my age group competitor from last year, was off on the other side of the field. We were pretending not to see each other. I think. At least, I was.
My quads were a little tight from the Friday night race, and my knee felt a little swollen.
The race starts with a little out and back on the grass, to spread us out a bit before we hit the singletrack. I felt good once I got moving, stronger than I remembered from last year. As we hit the first section of the trail, a slight downhill that was relatively wide and dry, it seemed like I was running better than last year, and not getting quickly overtaken by faster runners as usual. Or maybe I just lined up in the right place for a change. Brenda was behind me as we headed into the woods.
I don't know the trails in Mt. Airy very well. I only go over there when we have these races, and I haven't been doing that for very long. So I have only a vague idea of where we were in the park. I think we pretty much stayed just in one section of the park, whereas in the much longer Stone Steps race you cross over into another area. I think that we enter the woods and come back out the same way, but I'm not even entirely sure about that. But the course was well marked and I did not get lost the way I always seem to in the Stone Steps.
It didn't take too long until we hit the shoe-sucking mud. Most of the race for me was just a careful trudge through patches of ankle deep mud. Downhill was the worst. I began to just assume that it was slippery everywhere, and had to really take it easy. I wasn't even breathing hard, except when I got scared that I was going to fall down!
Camelbak Guy & Wheezy Girl
I had to let a few people go past me in the first few miles, but not many. The mud was slowing everybody down. There was supposed to be a water stop about halfway through, but it came a little sooner than that. I really wasn't thirsty but I grabbed a cup and took a sip. At this point, I was right behind a guy wearing a Camelbak (really overhill for a 5.4 mile race on a 50 degree day!) and a young woman who was wheezing really hard. He stopped to let the volunteer refill his Camelbak. I'm not kidding. Overkill.
Camelbak guy and wheezy girl seemed to be a couple, since he kept turning around and trying to offer her encouragement. I had the impression that the race was something he had talked her into doing without her really understanding what was involved.
Camelbak guy pulled away, and wheezy girl and I continued through the woods, with her right behind me. At one point, I asked her if she wanted to go around me---not because she was faster, but just because the wheezing was driving me crazy---but she declined. At that point I managed to pick it up a bit and before too long I couldn't hear her.
About halfway through the race, some other women came up behind me, and on the scary (to me) downhills I let them pass. One of them was Brenda W. After that I stayed right behind her. Aerobically I felt fine, I just was too afraid to really open it up in all the mud. So I hung out right behind Brenda, figuring that when we came out of the woods at the end I could outkick her if I had to.
One of my other goals for this race was that I was not going to quit at the end like I did last year, when I let a bunch of people pass me after we came out of the woods. I was going to finish strong.
The problem with running right behind Brenda was that I couldn't see the trail all that well with her just in front of me, and I couldn't judge it well by following her footing, because she was making some choices that were not the best for me and my knees. So after a bit I tried to put a little more space between us, without letting any other women pass me.
There was one section where the trail was quite narrow on the side of the hill, and there was just a string of 2 x 4s serving as a ledge to keep us from sliding down the hill. That was the worst.
At some point, a guy on the side of the trail told us that there was about a mile and a quarter to go, which was not good news if true because it meant I was not going to break an hour this year.
I Try to Finish Strong & Pass Some People
The last stretch coming out of the woods is uphill, and I swear that was the muddiest part of the race. We were getting tired, and the pace was pretty much reduced to a crawl. But just before we left the woods, the trail dried out again (which makes sense if we were going back out the same way we came in), and I wanted to pick it up, so I went around Brenda (who sounded like she was pretty cooked at this point).
I caught up with Camelbak guy. I'm not sure if I passed him or not. I pushed myself a little harder on the last stretch uphill through the grass. This is where I gave up last year. I felt like I was running through sand, but I kept running. I passed a couple of women who had stopped to walk. It seemed like it was taking forever. Where was the damn finish line? And then I could see it up ahead in the same area where we started.
I crossed the line in 1:04:36, almost 4 minutes slower than last year, which disappointed me but I guess I will blame it on the mud, which seemed to slow down everybody's times. More disappointing is that I finished 25 of 53 women, whereas last year I was 23rd. There were more women entered this year, and it was my bad luck that a few more of them were faster than I am. I was 77 of 120 runners overall, and my age-graded time was 55:37 (42 of 120 and 11th woman by age-graded time but that doesn't get me anything).
I walked up the hill to the shelter area and had about 3 cups of Gatorade while I walked around. I skipped the bagels and had just a banana. Brenda finished about a minute behind me. She reintroduced herself and we exchanged pleasantries. She asked me if I was going to do the next one (June 12 in French Park, right after I get back from the FCR National) and I guess I will see her there. That one includes a couple of stream crossings, so my shoes will get cleaned off.
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