Notes
Spring Thursday Night Trail Races #1
Goals (cascading)
A) Top 3
B) Feel strong
C) Aggressive downhills
2.5 mile warm-up. Felt fine but very little pop in my legs. I did a 1min tempo and a brief pickup, then some drills.
At the start line, there were the 2 guys who beat me at this race last year, Jackson and Oliver (who won every race last fall). But 100m in there were 3 different guys at the front, 2 I didn't recognize and 1 who I didn't think should be up there. I was in 6th with no one behind me and barely hanging on. I missed starting my watch, but I heard afterwards that we were running 5:30 pace.
We got to through the prairie and onto the trails and the guy in 3rd dropped as I expected. I got behind Jackson and Oliver and finally got my legs and breathing under control. I pushed past them harder than expected but I wanted room to run with the long downhill coming up. I took that hard but not recklessly and gained on the 2 ahead. Oliver hung with me. I'd estimate 5:55 for the mile.
The big difference today compared to last fall is that the creeks were full instead of dry. The first crossing was 6in maybe but the second was knee deep. As I approached, to my surprise, the leader was walking through it and second place was content with that. I don't know if it was unsporting but I said screw that and just plowed right past them. Unfortunately, their walking wasn't an indication that they were tired and I was passed by both again. But it did seem that Oliver was laboring behind me so I pushed a little harder than I may have otherwise.
I gradually dropped Oliver and still had both the leader and #1 in sight. But with some turns and slight uphills, they were suddenly gone with a half mile to go. I still felt good on the long uphill and finished feeling strong. 3rd overall.
Race Time: 18:34. So 18sec faster than the fall.
First place ended up being the On rep that was visiting from KC. He looks to be a solid ultra guy. 2nd place was a local, Micheal. Looks like he ran in college (NAIA) and had similar times to myself.