Notes
Leg C-15: Last Hill and Testament Run - Through the Ponds
In short: Definitely one of the most scenic runs of the relay. Hills early and sand most of the way.
Scenery: 10
Difficulty: 8
Leg C-15: 5.5 miles
Last run of the weekend. Originally slated to run C-16, but switched with Birkel after he felt sick the last 2 days. Legs were trashed going into this, but wanted to get out there and do it for the team. Matched up with Brendan and Frintner, didn't see the runner for BatJ. Frintner was gunning for me after I ran faster on him for our first 2 match ups this weekend.
Got the hand off from Evan, and started off on a big open dirt road. At 1.5 the road turned into more of a dirt two-track through the woods. Ran through a bunch of Y's. Going into this, I'd heard cautions that it might be easy to make a wrong turn, but the intersections were fairly obvious and some were marked with blue flags. Some guy who was well ahead of me thought he made a wrong turn and was running backwards, but I reassured him we were going the right way, then he dropped me lol.
I was honestly dying this entire leg. Similar to how I felt this morning, I knew I should be running faster than I was, but I could just not get me legs moving any faster. Just focused on chugging along and staying consistent, and didn't worry about time. It helped that our position for the day/weekend was pretty secure: just outside top-5, and ahead of the other open Elite team. Didn't really get to enjoy the scenery either because I was hurting bad. The dirt road wasn't all that hard, but it was definitely sandy which didn't help.
Got onto the road with a mile to go and sped up a bit, knowing it was the end of my GLR. Heard about one final big hill right before the finish. Started running up what I thought was the big hill, and pushed pretty hard. But got to the top and didn't see the exchange zone I knew I was in trouble. Ran another quarter of a mile around the bend and saw the actual big hill. Tried to push hard again up this one, but it was all I could do just to keep moving up it. Saw some guys right at the top who I thought were cheering for me. Turned out they were cheering for the guy who sprinted past me in the last quart mile to the exchange after we crested the hill.
Finished feeling dead but accomplished. Would have like to be faster the last two days of the trip, but with how training has been going, and the load I took on this weekend, I'm happy with how it went. Team No BitchAsses got 7th in the open division in a real competitive year, so v happy with the team result. Fired up to get into some good training and get into good shape for some fall races.