After last weekend’s Dirty Spokes race at Rope Mill park in Woodstock, I found a flyer for the Mountain Goat Trail Run Series under the windshield wipers on my car, as is common with most road or trail races. Normally, I say ‘hey I should do this race it sounds cool,’ then I completely forget about it shortly thereafter. Howevah, while Amanda and I were checking out the Woodstock/Kennesaw area we saw a poster with all the series race dates on the wall at and REI and low and behold the next race was a mere seven days away on April 14. I decided to see how my training went over the next couple days and if I was feeling it I would jump into the race, with the mindset of worst-case scenario I get another tempo run in. Fast forward to Thursday afternoon’s run…I was debating doing this race all week, but made the decision to go for it on Thursday. I had a solid workout on Tuesday and my legs felt pretty good, due to the fact that time constraints have forced me to run a lot of shorter doubles lately.
I woke up extra early Saturday morning (5:00 am) to get news clips for work done before making my way out to Acworth, GA. My GPS had some issues finding the actual location of the park that the race was at but I ended up noticing a couple cars with all the familiar signs of trail runners (26.2 stickers, USA Triathlon stickers, etc…triathletes love trails) around me and followed them to the parking lot. I parked, signed up, and since this was my first official race as a Saucony Hurricane I threw on my newly minted Vizi-Pro gear and headed out for a quick 1.5/2 mile warm up on the first part of the course. I ran into fellow Hurricane Mitch Novy, threw on my racing gear and we headed over to the starting area.
The race started out with a 5k in open grass fields before crossing the street and hitting the Turtleback mountain bike trails. Before starting a guy running in the five mile gave Mitch and I a quick rundown of what to expect on the mountain bike trails. He said they were fairly flat with one section that had a couple of switchback hills. Switchback hills seem to be par for the course in this area of Georgia. The gun (err…cowbell) went off and we started running down a gravel road that stretched out about 200 yards before hitting the grass fields. As I always try to do, I got out to the front to escape and carnage and since Mitch and I were wearing bright orange everyone else decided to settle in behind content to let us set the pace.
After letting things shakeout over the first quarter mile or so I decided to take advantage of the fact that the early part of this course was right in my wheelhouse and put in a small surge to see if anyone was going to respond to any early moves. The one thing that I still struggle with in these trail races is racing with a group on tight winding trails. I thought a little bit of a surge would stretch things out and by the time we hit the woods I’d know who the contenders where. My overall race plan was similar to how I approached the half, stay relaxed early, don’t get in over my head in the first few miles and then work the flats and down hills once I got through 5k.
My surge worked perfectly. Mitch and a few others stayed within contact but they started to let me drift away after about a mile. I felt absolutely great for the first 5k. I was running effortlessly and used the courses turns to continue to stretch my lead by surging out of them. This section of the course reminded me of the Tufts cross country course in Grafton if it were dead flat. I think my comfort on that type of course helped me run well without feeling like I was running hard. Thinking about running well at Tufts in high school and then winning ECAC cross country there as a sophomore in college only fed my confidence.
After rolling through the first 5k and building a solid lead we ran back through the starting area, across the street and into the trails. I used the first section of trail as a spot to continue to build my lead and try to make sure I was out of sight once we got into the tight, twisting single-track. Most of the race was actually fairly uneventful. It reminded me a lot of the Xterra half marathon. I was running in no man’s land for a long time and I alternated between worrying about whether I was getting caught and just trying to keep pressing to run away from everyone. One problem I ran into in the woods was the lack of mile markers. Mountain bike trails are tricky because the amount of twists and turns can not only slow you down by make it difficult to judge the distance you’ve traveled. No mile markers left me in a tough spot when I got deeper into the race. I knew there was a water stop at six miles (or 10k I’m not sure), but other than that my only other marker for distance was the finish line. I also never wear watch in races, which left me with no clue of how far I’d run and about mid-way through the race I started looking for the water stop around every turn.
Eventually I hit the water stop, took a little bit of GU and tried to refocus and close the race out over the final three miles. It’s funny, I’ve taken GU exactly twice. Once in the Xterra half and once last weekend, for about 60 seconds it’s like Popeye’s spinach, I absolutely hammer. Then, shortly after, I want to boot because it’s nasty. Although, the mandarin orange flavor wasn’t as bad as the strawberry banana. Anyway…after the water stop the course continued to have a few ups and downs but overall it was fairly flat. With about two miles to go I started passing lappers from the five mile race, which helped me keep pressing the pace as I tried to catch them. I scared the life out of one woman, who was running with her headphones in (grrr…) I yelled ‘on your left’ twice but she still didn’t hear and then when I passed her she let out a blood curdling scream. I felt kind of bad for scaring her, but like I’ve said before, headphones in a trail race when you might get lapped are not a good idea.
Shortly after that incident I passed through the section where the trail originally had split at about 3.5 miles, so I knew I only had about a half to go until I hit the finish. I tried to stride it out and drive through to the finish, I had a little hitch in my giddy up with some slight hamstring tightness but I was able to finish strong and hit the line at 55:08.
Overall I was really happy with the race. It was uneventful but I got in a really good rhythm through the first 5k and separated from the pack without using a ton of energy, then I was able to roll through the single-track really well. I felt strong for most of the race, despite a little bit of hamstring tightness. As far as time goes, I generally equate these trail races as running a mile longer than their actual distance. What I mean is, I feel like whatever I run for the trail distance I should be able to run a similar time for a race that’s a mile longer on the road. For example, running 55:08 for nine miles on the trails, to me, means that I should be able to run a similar time for 10 miles on the road. That might not be 100 percent accurate but that’s my belief. This was a good long workout that should help set me up for next weekend’s Dirty Spokes trail race.
No comments:
Post a Comment