Saturday I headed out to Haw Creek for the sixth race of the Dirty Spokes trail series. Amanda and I headed out a little bit early to make sure we got a parking spot since there is limited parking. I warmed up with lap around the course then did some stretching and caught up with a few of the usual suspects to talk about the course and race plans. Also, today was my first race in my new Saucony kit. It's sweet. My shorts are a tad big but it's a sweet looking uni.
My plan for the day was to run to win, but I also knew that Haw Creek was likely to be the fastest course of the series. At 5.5 miles it’s one of the shortest, but it’s also double track and not very hilly so I figured it would be a good course to get out and roll on. I also figured it would be a good tune up for Peachtree. As I made my way to the start I ran into Mitch Novy and Jesse Rapole. I talked to them for a bit and found out Mitch was running the short course, which was one lap and 2.75 miles. I decided to relax at the beginning and let Mitch do a little bit of the work before taking over and trying to put some distance on Jesse during the second lap.
At the gun, Mitch and one of the youngsters, Alec, took the race out really hard which was perfect for my plan of letting the guys running the short course do some of the work on the first lap. Unfortunately, this didn’t last very long. Once we hit the trail I passed Mitch, who had dropped back, and closed a 20 or so yard gap on Alec. I ran with him up until about the half or three quarter mile then I took the lead with a strong acceleration out of one of the tight corners. I tried to maintain my acceleration as long as possible which effectively broke the field, Jesse was caught too far back to cover while Alec and Mitch had no interest in running with me since they were running the short course.
I kept pressing every section that was open while pulling back on the reigns a little in some of the corners. Around two miles I ran into Tim who was checking the course on his mountain bike. He gave me a quick time check on the guys behind me and I tried to use him as a pacer as he rode a head. I came thought the first lap with sizable lead and really rolled the first mile of the second loop trying to stretch things out the best I could. When I saw Tim, he said I was about 20 seconds up, but I didn’t know if that was on Jesse of the short course guys. Turns out it was the short course guys because when I crossed the finish Amanda told me I was about 90 seconds up on Jesse and the guy in third from the ATC.
I finished in 31:22 (5:42 pace), which was pretty solid considering I ran most of the race solo and I still haven’t had the workouts that I feel like I need. At the end of the day it was another win and 15 points for me, which means all I’ve got to do is show up to the finale at Sawnee Mountain to claim my third straight Dirty Spokes title. Also, despite the venue change I won for the third time in a row on the penultimate race of the series, with two wins at Central Park and now the win at Haw Creek. I’ve been gearing up for the tour and British people love saying penultimate.
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