This was my first ever half marathon and the first time I’ve run an Xterra race. Tim from Dirty Spokes puts on all the Xterra Georgia, North Carolina and Alabama races as well as the Dirty Spokes series and a bunch of other mountain bike and duathlons…as always it was a great event, the course was really well marked and laid out, he smartly has the race start on a short paved loop to thin out the crowd and the post-race atmosphere was great, whether you won or ran three hours. I am a huge fan of all the events he puts on and will definitely continue to run these races in the future. On to the race…
We started out on the road and ran close to a half mile on the road before we headed onto the trails. I wasn’t expecting that but it was good because where I was thinking we would head into the trails would have had us running a really tough first two miles of up and down. At the gun I got out good to make sure I was clear of any traffic and then settled in behind Matt Rivers and the eventual winner David Bell. Matt set the pace for the first quarter or so until we started climbing up the road to the trail entrance. My race plan was to stay upfront but stay conservative for the first couple miles because of all the up and down. I wanted to focus on running the flat and downhill sections, while I just tried to manage the climbs.
Heading into the woods David Bell took the lead with a strong surge, I didn’t respond because I was worried that I would throw my race off by letting him dictate my pace. I decided to hang back and run with Matt Rivers for a while and see if we could work together and catch up to the lead. That didn’t really happen as Matt hung back a little bit and eventually let me go, which turned into me just trying to survive and hang on at the end.
We hit the two-mile mark just before the mountain bike parking lot and knowing that I had a relatively flat and relatively straight mile ahead of me I put in my first surge. This is where I started to pull away from Matt and I ended up closing a good bit on David. We hit three miles and then started to climb up the three step hill, which is a three section, terraced hill that you wind up and down. It was a tough spot but we started catching marathoners (they started 30 minutes before us) so that helped me a little bit as I was able to use the lappers as targets to go catch.
After finishing the three step hill we passed through four miles and came up on the first water stop. The water stop was set up on the far side of the road at one of the only road crossings in the race. As I was turning to come out of the woods I saw a white hatchback car going 35 or 40 miles an hour (a.k.a. flying) down the road and about to blast through the crossing area. Mind you, the area where we crossed the road was marked with a crosswalk, six cones, oh and four people at a table with water coolers who were standing in the road. Apparently this guy missed all of those signs and decided to hammer through. I had to slow up to make sure I didn’t get hit by the car, and I ended up smashing the rear quarter panel to let him know that he almost hit me. I may have thrown a profanity or two his way, I can’t quite remember.
Before we headed home after the race I drove around the park to the spot where this happened to show Amanda. When we turned the corner onto the road there was a speed limit sign that said SPEED LIMIT 7 MPH…yeah seven miles an hour.
After my brush with death, I missed the water because everyone was so confused by what happened. I think everyone thought that I got hit. It actually fired me up and carried me through the next mile from four to five. From four to six miles was actually a lot faster and smoother than I thought it would be. I really felt like I was putting some distance on the guys behind me and running in a really good rhythm. I was also passing a bunch of marathoners at this point so that was a big help as well.
I knew that the second water stop was coming up at the 10k mark, so when I hit six miles I took out the strawberry-banana GU that I had in my back pocket and ate some. This was the first time I’ve taken fuel in a race and blech…that stuff is nasty but it went down pretty easy and after getting some water (I only nearly choked on the water the first time I tried to sip) I continued rolling through the winding section of trail.
Six and seven went by pretty quickly and rather uneventfully. We started to come down hill towards the backside of the dam, which was really, really windy. After heading back into the woods we climbed up to the first section of power line trail, where a completely miserable hill climb waited. The hill wasn’t overly steep but it was a long slog to the top. About three quarters of the way up I caught a glimpse of Bell taking the hard right onto the fire road that led back around the lake. I dug in and grinded my way to the top, knowing that the loop along the lake that was coming up was going to be my best chance to make up ground on him and put more distance on Rivers.
When I got to the top of the hill and made the hard turn on the fire road I took a few strides heading down the hill to try and regroup before I started to pick up the pace. Going into the race I knew this section would be key for me. It was 8 miles into the race and it was a flat, hard packed and straight section of trail. I really focused on working this mile of the race and it went pretty well. My legs were starting to get really beat up from all of the up and down but they responded to my desire to run faster.
After the lake loop, I started the climb back up towards the power lines, which started with a short steep hill that was right at the nine-mile mark. For some reason I thought that nine miles was only going to be the eight-mile mark, so when I saw nine miles on the sign I almost jumped out of my shoes. My excitement was quickly diminished though because after that I came out of the woods and had another long climb up the power lines. This one was brutal. I felt like all of the distance I’d put on the guys behind me was going to evaporate.
Somehow I managed to survive the climb and once back on the trail I tried to recover quickly. After another short climb I passed the 10 mile mark and started a downhill section ran from 10 almost all the way to 11. This was another one of the sections of race that I knew I needed to run well. I really tried to hammer this section to make up for how heinous the previous hill went.
My plan worked well until I got to the bottom of the downhill section right before the climb up deadwood hill. That’s when the wheels really started to come off. I managed the uphill alright but the switch backed downhill was another story. The 11-mile mark came and went and I tried to bear down and just focus on catching the marathon lappers than were in front of me. With about a mile and a half to go my hamstring and hip flexor really started to get tight. There were a couple of spots where I was reduced to hobbling. I put my head down and tried to keep moving my legs, figuring I’d get caught at any moment. At this point I was just hoping I’d put enough distance to hang onto one of the top three spots.
Once I got to 12 miles I took a couple glances back at a few of the corners and I couldn’t see anyone but lappers. I didn’t want to focus too much energy on worrying about what was behind me and see if I could get a solid final mile in and grab second place.
Once I got to the point where I had turned around for my warm up I knew I only had about three minutes or so before the finish and it was downhill, so I sucked it up and brought it home to cross the line in 1:23:45.
It was by no means, blazingly fast but I wanted to get under 1:25 and finish in the top three…mission accomplished. Overall it was a great experience. As my first attempt at a longer distance race (more than the typical 10k anyway) I thought I had a pretty sound plan going into the race and it ended up working out pretty well. I initially figured there would be more of a pack towards the front of the race, but it quickly thinned out and was basically a race for second after the third mile. I may have had a shot to catch up to the winner late in the race after a good 10th mile but I just didn’t have the legs and I struggled over the last two miles. Regardless it was fun. I won some sweet Darn Tough Vermont socks (the second pair I’ve won…I love these socks) and a free pair of INOV8’s. Not a bad haul.
Tim records all of the races he puts on with a Go Pro camera mounted to either his quad or mountain bike. After the races he is kind enough to post them on youtube. The Thrill in the Hills video is embedded below. I’m in a three mile orange singlet with black shorts.
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