Saturday was not only my first race of 2015, it was also my debut race for my new club, Wild Endurance. The club was started by heterolifemate Josh Ferenc and while I’ve been having some issues getting officially signed up for the club with USATF, I still plan on repping this crew in 2015. Frozen Foot was a new addition to the Dirty Spokes series last year, taking the place of a race that was held on the same trails but was held later in the year. I missed the race in 2014 because I was back home for the weekend, but I’d run in the course when it was the Central Park 5 miler the pervious couple years. I got to the race a little later than I would have liked, but I was at least able to job around a little and catch up with my buddy Mitch Novy (Reckless Running) before the gun.
Heading into this race, I knew that I wasn’t in great shape. After taking two weeks off in December and then slowly starting to build back up I figured I’d have one gear and it would probably be a task to get myself on the podium. I decided to start things off steady and then just try to run with Mitch for the first lap. He ran the short (one lap) course, while I ran the longer (two lap) course. At the gun a whole mess of high school kids sprinted off the line with Mitch out front leading the charge. I quickly realized that my initial plan was out the window and I just focused on settling into a rhythm and working my way through the pack.
The race started out with a loop around one of the park’s baseball fields then dipped into the mountain biking trails for two loops. I passed most of the high schoolers and tried to settle in behind Jason Parks, who would go on to win, and work on catching the other guys ahead of us. Jason started to open things up on me around a half mile in when we hit the switchbacks and started to make our way up the climb. I ended up in fourth over the top of the climb, which was about the mile mark. At that point, I tried to focus on trying to catch back up to Mitch. I figured if I could connect with him through the first lap I would set myself up for a podium spot.
I did not feel great and struggled a little more than I thought I would in the tight trail sections, but I was able to get things going a little bit on some of the more open sections of the course. I closed down on Mitch around 2 or 2.5 miles and set out on catching the next guy in front of us. At that point I figured that a win was out of the question and I had a feeling the high school dude in second was only going to be running the short course, so I felt like I could relax a little and just try to focus on trying to run strong in the second half of the race.
I caught the second place runner around with about a half mile left in the first lap. When we came out of the short wooded loop he made a little surge to pull ahead of me as we hit the final single track section. It’s cut into the side of a hill and when I say single track, I mean single track. The trail isn’t wide enough to stand with your feet side by side. I knew I wanted to get by him and try to string things out a little, just in case he was running the long course. I didn’t want to get stuck going into the hill for a second time.
When we came to the split for the 4 mile finish, he turned right to head to the finish line and I broke left to start my second lap. I tried to throw in a surge going back into the woods to try and keep some racing momentum, but most of the second lap ended up being cruise control. Jason Parks was too far out front and there was no one behind me for a while. I just settled in and ran the second lap. Once we got over the big climb for the second time, I started catching up to some lappers so that helped me get going a little bit, but like I said to Mitch post-race, after I was able to catch him and the kid that won the four miler I just settled in and cruised the second lap.
I ended up being around where I thought I would be and I’ll take it as a good workout. I ran faster than normal and that’s really what I needed, a good first workout. I know where I’m at right now and while that’s a little frustrating, my goals aren’t races early in the year. I’ve just got to keep building and keep working and I know the times and hopefully wins will come in these Dirty Spokes races.
Even though it wasn’t the greatest performance, it was good to get back out there and see all the familiar faces. I got a chance to catch up with a bunch of good buddies and my cousin Greg came down from the Tennessee wilderness for the race. He’s pretty gnarly, just started running in 2013 and rocked a 50k, 11 miler at Cloudland Canyon and Saturday’s race three consecutive weeks, pretty badass. One of my favorite things about Dirty Spokes is the way they treat everyone that comes out. Tim and the crew offered a free pair of Mizunos for the 10th person to reach the top of the climb in each race, which was a really cool way to give some different people a chance to win something.
Here's the data from Strava:
No comments:
Post a Comment