Notes
this race served as the 2013 USA Mountain Running Championships..Let it be known I was contention for diddly squat!
Women 8:15, Men 9:15, race started at the TOP of Cranmore Ski Mountain, and went DOWNHILL first!...uggg..3 loop course.
No idea what really to expect. Told myself as i ran around the top waiting for our start to "take the first loop easy, the Junior men are going to go out hard as they only have to run 2 loops, you 3. The downhills can make or break your race..easy on the first, second moderate, 3rd let it rip!"...ha..inner dialogue sucks!
1st loop: Countdown from 30 seconds.."dam I'm standing next to Max King(World Champion mountain runner) and other American, Mexican and Canadian Elite runners! I better move back." 15 SECONDS "Ok..easy on the first loop"READY, SET GO "*uck to fast, to fast!" At this point i got caught up in the race of everyone else and just hammered the down hill (still getting passed). First mile 5:48("dam i thought to myself, this could get ugly)...and Ugly it did. After grabbing water at the bottom of the mountain, and dumping most of it down my back as it had started to get warmer, I saw what was to come. This long line (over 1/4 mile) of runners pretty much fast pace walking up hill. I stuck my nose the ground and started to work hard. My legs felt heavy.."shit" walking began after 1.5 miles in.."Just get to the top, only 2 more loops (why the hell am i thinking THAT!)(should i quit") (NO, SHUT UP AND RUN)..that inner dialogue continued until 5k where we reached the end of loop 1.
2nd Loop. Leg switing gear to down hill was pretty hard, but after a few minutes things started to turn over again.Not anywhere near the first loop though. Pretty much the same rhythm on the uphill portion of this look..talking myself into quitting, and telling myself no..catching runners, getting passed...pretty much crawling to the top...it was hard and getting warm.
3rd loop. After reach the summit for the second time, the cold air was evident..at least 20 degrees cooler as you passed the first/start. it was really nice, but soon lost as we made the final decent....I was passed by one or two people as i held back in hopes to save my legs a bit for GCI (yeah right!), but on the final climb (about 1.5 miles) I managed to pass 15 runners. (8 who were on the same lap as me) and only got passed my two mountain goats..(they were flying up hill.)
It's pretty evident from my splits that I wasn't in any kind of shape to run a Mountain race. I've gotten some hill running in and trails, but nothing even remotely close to this since running that 17 miler back in June with Peter K. Three crows present at the race, so maybe we placed OK in the team results..we'll wait and see.