My goal for this race was to run 50k in the 6 hour event, however, when I started running and saw that the conditions weren't bad, I thought 53-54km would be attainable. I've run this race a couple of times before, as well as the Horror Trail Run (which takes place on the same trail), which means that I knew what to expect. Basically, it would all depend on the weather. In my opinion, the ideal conditions for this race would be hard packed snow with temperatures just below zero. A fresh snowfall can make the race more challenging and above freezing temperatures can potentially make it very slushy or muddy, which would make for slow running. More important than the distance or my overall placement, I wanted to take it relatively easy and avoid injury since I am running a goal race, the Rocky Raccoon 100 miler, in 2 weeks and have wanted to run that race for years. I already feel under-trained for it and an injury would be a devastating blow.
In the week leading up to the
race, I saw that the weather forecast showed rain. I was hoping to avoid mud but, since the weather is beyond my control, I didn't worry about it. I enjoy this event every year and looked forward to seeing friends and getting in a final long run. As it turns out, the weather was pretty amazing with a high of 5 degrees. The trail conditions were better than expected as well, though I did wear my spikes since there was plenty of ice on the course.
Overall, I'm happy with my result. I ended up running 53km. I had to make a tough decision at this race and I made a couple pretty careless mistakes as well. My biggest mistake was that I simply didn't eat or drink enough. I wasn't hungry and my stomach was feeling a bit off. I let my nutition get away from me and it was a careless error. The decision that I had to make was this: 90 minutes into the race, my hip flexor started to hurt. The pain grew and was quite significant. Since my main goal was to avoid an injury, I thought that if I could run for 3 hours, I would walk the remaining 3 hours. Once I got to 3 hours, although it still hurt, the pain wasn't really worse so I decided to run for another hour, and then another. At 5 hours, I knew that I could walk for an hour and still get in more than 50k. However, at this point I was leading the race by about 1 lap (the course is a 2.1km loop that runners complete as many times as possible in 6hrs) and I knew that walking would mean that I would lose out at a shot for 1st place. I decided that it was more important to avoid doing more damage, I swallowed my pride and walked it in. I actually still ran some of the downhills, which hurt less, so that I could reach 53km. At 5 hours and 41 minutes into the race, I lost the lead. 3 minutes later, I moved into 3rd place. Surprisingly, it didn't bother me. I consider both of the runners that passed me to be friends and, the fact of the matter is, they ran a better race than me and deserved to beat me. They had a better race plan than I did and both had enough left in the tank to put on a pretty epic race in the final minutes.
They were both super consistent all day, most likely did a better job meeting their nutritional needs, and they avoided injury. I don't think it is a fair statement to say that I was "unlucky" to have had a sore hip flexor because it doesn't happen without cause. I haven't been doing any strengthening excercises, my training has been a bit weak, and it was my first time running a long distance with the spikes- which was a mistake. These aren't excuses but rather reasons why I didn't deserve to do any better than I did.
There were also some positive takeaways from this experience. First, I got in a final long run before my 100 miler in 2 weeks. Second, I was able to see a bunch of my running friends, which brought me a lot of joy. Third, and most importantly, I was able to make what I believe to be a wise decision and didn't let my ego get the better of me.
I also came to the realization that my goals for Rocky Raccoon need to be re-evaluated. If I'm being honest with myself, I don't think I have a sub 20 hour race in me right now. Perhaps, I just don't want it bad enough. Although this will be my 8th 100 miler, I still don't have the confidence to really push for a fast time. At the end of the day, I will always be happy just to finish.
(photos taken by Steven Parke)
Comments