Race Recap: Dirty Spokes Harbins Park Trail Half Marathon

Editor's note: This is another one that sad in my drafts folder for a few weeks before I finished it. This race was on May 9, a week before the 3 hour mountain bike race.

I've been MIA from blog the last couple of weeks due to work and not racing, but truthfully I haven't really done much lately that's been blog worthy. My workouts have been going pretty well, but other than that my runs have been pretty normal. With that said, I'm getting back on the horse after getting back into the swing of things with the Dirty Spokes Harbins Park Trail Half Marathon on Saturday, May 9.

This is the first real warm weather race down here and with it being a half marathon, Dirty Spokes smartly starts it a 7:30, unfortunately for me it came after the Draft and right in the middle of rookie minicamp. That meant the week leading up to race day was filled with poor nutrition, so-so hydration, and a lack of good sleep. Needless to say, I was a little worried about where I was at going into the race, but I'm chasing another series title so bailing was not an option.

Harbins is an underrated park in my opinion. It's got a 5 mile hiking trail that hosts an XTERRA race in the fall as well as around four miles of paved paths and three different mountain bike trail systems. The mountain bike trails are fairly new and two of the three systems are wide cut, which makes it a great spot for trail running. The park has a tricky amount of elevation change to it, nothing crazy but enough to do some damage at the end of a race if you aren't paying attention.

The half marathon course starts with a brief loop on the pavement before hitting the trails. The course follows the MB1 & MB2 trails (it's a great park but could use a little creativity on the trail names) for nearly five miles before connecting to the hiking trail for the next five miles, at that point you run along the equestrian trail (yeah they have that too, sorry totally forgot about that trail) before connecting to the MB3 trail and then eventually finishing with a grueling quarter mile on the paved path.

Harbins Park trail map - hard to decipher but this gives an idea of what the course was like 

I ran into Mitch, who was running the short course, when I got to the race and he asked if I was planing to go out with him. Since the short course was 3.5 miles, no chance. I said my plan was to hang back and try to conserve some energy for the last few miles, when it was going to start getting hot and when the rolling hills would start to take their toll. I didn't see any of the guys that I consider rivals but there were plenty of usual suspects. That last sentence kind of makes me sound like a dick, but none of the guys I've lost to in the last few months were around so I thought if I ran smart I should be able to get the win. Yeah that didn't really sound any better. I wanted to win the race, but wasn't sure what kind of legs I would have. That's a little less douchey right?

I didn't get much of a warm up in, so I was heavily committed to staying conservative early on. I kept thinking about the TuckFest half where we had a group for four pretty close together despite the fact that Ryan Woods would go on to win by a good margin and I would end up out in front of the rest of the field in second. I was trying to calm my mind and tell myself that it would okay to not be alone off the front right away.

When the gun went off, Mitch took off. He ended up so far out in front it was almost comical. It kind of worked out like a bike race where he went off the front while the rest of the field stayed behind me, which gave Mitch an instant 25-30 yard lead. He was first into the woods by a long way and I followed in second with a 10 yard gap on the guys behind me. Mitch was out of sight after about a mile and I was firmly settled into no man's land, which was fine by me.

I was feeling pretty good early on and just tried to stay calm and resist the urge to push the pace over the mostly downhill early miles. I was maintaining a decent lead over the two guys behind me but they looked like they were working pretty well together, so when we hit the hiking trail I decided to put in a surge until I reached the base of the first climb around the seven mile mark. I got into a good rhythm and was rolling pretty well on the hiking trail so that gave me a little boost going into the climb. I actually got to the first water station before they were ready for me but luckily they had water laid out in cups on the ground. I grabbed one a sipped trying to remember to stay calm with the climb looming ahead.

I worked my way up the switchbacks and when I crested the hill I tried to take a few deep breaths and recover before putting in another surge on the long downhill that followed. At this point the guys behind me were out of sight, so I tried to focus on settling into a good rhythm with the next three miles being really runnable. Things were going really smoothly until just after nine miles when I hit the equestrian trail. Everything just hit me all at once, heat, hydration, my hamstring tightened up, it was a murphy's law situation. The equestrian trail should have been another strong section for me, but instead I went into the final 5k of mountain bike trails reeling.

The last three miles aren't technical, but they are tight and twisting and tough to establish a rhythm on. I was pretty sure that I had built up a decent lead, but the way I ran the 10th mile had me starting to look over my shoulder expecting to see someone at any moment. I made one more push on a double track section of the trail that cut between two sections of singletrack, trying to kick start things with a surge. It worked for a few minutes but shortly after coming back onto the single track I started to fade again.  

Still struggling, I slogged my way to the final mile and then switched into survival mode. I knew I wasn't far from the finish and I kept telling myself  'just get to the pavement'. Once I did I was able to open up my stride a little bit and cruise into the finish for the win.

Officially, I finished in 1:26:55, ahead of the second place finisher, Kenyrik Alexis, who crossed in 1:30:47. I don't think I could have felt better for the first 7 or 8 miles and I don't think I could have felt worse for the last 3 or 4 miles. It was a tale of two races for me, but coming off of a busy stretch at work I just wanted to get the win.

Here's what the race looked like on Strava.