Race Recap: Dirty Spokes University of North Georgia 5.3 Mile Trail Race
UNG has become one of two courses that I consider to be a home race for me. It's about 15 miles up the highway from my house and about five minutes from my office, so I've spent a good amount of time on the trails there. It is one of the faster trail races on my calendar due to its shorter distance - between 5.3 & 5.5 miles depending on where the start is - and the fact that the course has a solid two miles of flat and fast dirt/gravel road.
It's a very fast start with 1.5 miles on the wide hard-packed trail. After that things slow down when you hit the mountain bike trails. There isn't a lot of land at the school so they've really tried to get as much distance as possible by filling the trail with a ton of twists and turns. Around about 3.5 miles things open up a little more. The turns are more sweeping than slalom but it's still a mountain bike trail. Shortly after hitting the four-mile mark you see the only real elevation change on the course, a quick up-and-over before you drop back down onto the fast stuff again for the finishing stretch.
A good bit of this race is right in my wheel house, so I've been chasing a sub-30 minute run for about six years. Spoiler alert, I didn't get it this year. I think it's doable but the course has changed a little bit since I ran 30:18 a few years ago. I think Ferenc ran 30:15 a few years ago when he came down for it. The start used to be in an open field - cross country style - now it's straight onto the hard pack. While the new start is definitely quicker, I think it adds a little bit to the course. I'd have to check what Tim wheeled it at but I'd venture a guess that with the old start it was 5.3 and the new one is 5.5. It almost certain adds a little bit now that we don't cut across the field. That's kind of an excuse, but whatever. I'll be back next year chasing that sub-30 run again.
Okay, on to the race.
I woke up on Saturday morning feeling confident after getting back on track with another hill workout earlier in the week but by the time I got to the race I felt flat. I did a two mile warm up while searching for an open building/bathroom and told myself that it was just prerace angst that was making my legs feel heavy and sluggish. I switched my shoes and headed over to the starting line where I ran into Mitch Novy and a couple of the other usual suspects. Mitch told me he had to take some time off with tendinitis so he wasn't going to be taking the race out hard like he normally does. Instead he'd hang back and run with me until I broke off into the woods for the long course. I was totally fine with that since in the past we'd been able to run away from the chasers over the first 1.5 miles and that's set me up really nicely.
When the gun went off we both got out clean, which was a concern since there was a narrow bridge about 50 meters in that could have been troublesome if you didn't get a clean line. Once we got across the bridge I settled in an fell into a comfortable rhythm with Mitch running right on my shoulder. My plan was to stay smooth and relaxed through the mile then put in a surge until I went into the woods where I'd ease off a little and focus on getting through the tight sections and opening it up on the more runnable ones.
Things went according to plan for the first mile with Mitch and I controlling things out front. We clipped off the first mile in 5:40, which I felt was perfect, at that point I started to ramp it up a little bit and ended up falling into rhythm behind Tim on the four wheeler. That might have been a little bit of a mistake. I ended up really dropping the hammer and almost instantly opened up a substantial gap. I felt good rolling it out, but after glancing at my watch and seeing 5:05 pace I figured I might be in over my head. I eased off a little bit but I still wanted to do as much damage as I could before getting into the woods.
That worked. I had around 40 seconds to a minute lead by the time I went into the woods, but for all the damage I did to the field, I did plenty of damage to myself. As soon as you go into the woods you have a couple of tight turns in succession and I felt completely gassed. I told myself to breathe and take whatever time I needed to recover then use the parts of the course that I felt comfortable on to get back to racing. It took me a little while get back into the race but eventually I started to feel a little better. My third mile was a little bit soft and I let the second and third place runners bring back too much ground. Ultimately that probably helped me. It made me feel like I had to stay in the race and I couldn't just fall into cruise control.
With so many twists and turns there are a lot of places that you can see the runners ahead or behind you. That didn't do a whole lot for my whole 'don't worry about what other people are doing' thing, but like I said, it put plenty of fear motivation into me. By the time I reached the four-mile mark I felt like I was back in control. My legs still didn't feel like that had a ton of pop, but I knew exactly what I had left in terms of the course and I felt confident that I was going to get the win and turn in a solid time.
Inside the final mile and change I started to push things a little harder. I was driving out of the turns and was starting to pass some of the short course runners, using them to keep the focus on what lay ahead of me.
With about a half mile to go I was rolling down the final section of mountain bike trail before dropping back onto the gravel road for the push to the finish when I came up on a short course racer. I announced "coming up on your left" and he moved off the trail to let me buy. I got by him clean and the grimace on my face was turning into a smile. I started thinking about the hill workout I did on Wednesday. I set a new KOM on the Carriage Road climb at Little Mulberry. That climb sucks, but I grinded my way through a solid workout. I said to myself 'if you can do that this should be easy. It's dead flat!' Then boom. All of a sudden I was slidding into second base and I was out by a mile.
I clipped a root with my right foot. One of those ones that you catch with your toe when both feet are off the ground and went down hard. I nearly caught myself by I was going down so fast that I couldn't right the ship and ended up doing a head first slide. I was pissed. "Ahhh SHIT!" I grumbled as I scrambled to get back to my feet. I knew I'd opened up some distance but if I wallowed and took to long to get going again getting caught was a possibility.
The initial shot of adrenaline helped me get to my feet and try to get back into the race but after a minute or so I started to realize that I was dealing with more than just a raspberry on my right hip and bashed up hands. After the adrenaline wore off I noticed that accompanying each step was a sharp shot of pain in my left calf. Fortunately, I didn't have far to go at that point and I was able to hold on for the win. I felt like my mind and body were totally separate in the final 400 meters or so. My body was stuck grinding away as my mind was sprinting to the finish.
I limped across the line in 32:16, so not only was I disappointed in the time, but I was pissed at myself for hitting the deck. I've been pretty fortunate in that I haven't fallen in a race in a long time. There have been a few slip up and 'oh shit' moments but no full on crashes for a long time. I stuck around the finish to see the second and third place guys, who ran really strong. Both guys averaged right around six-minute pace, 6:02 and 6:03 I think. With a lot of these trails being mountain bike trails, averaging six-minute pace is good enough to win a lot of them. Major kudos to those two guys.
 |
| The look on my face sums up how I felt about the fall |
I hobbled my way to the car to clean myself off and change shoes before heading out for a 2+ mile cool down with Mitch. I was hoping that if I kept moving my calf would loosen up. It loosened up a little bit on the jog but as soon as we finished I felt like I had a softball lodged in my calf. I hung around the awards ceremony for a while, trying to keep moving around to stay loose. It didn't work.
I had a short ride back home from the race venue, but when I tried to get up out of the car I doubled over and fell into Amanda's car in the garage. I hobbled into the house and went straight for an ice pack. It was a gorgeous day, so we had hoped to enjoy it outside but after struggling to maneuver from the car to the counter at Jimmy Johns I decided I needed to shut it down for the day. I spent the rest of Saturday on the couch, alternating between ice and a compression sleeve.
I was not happy on Saturday afternoon. I was really nervous about how long it would take for the pain and swelling to abate. Fortunately, when I woke up Sunday it felt better. I could still feel the tightness, but I was back to walking normal. The original plan was to get in a long run (14-15 miles) on Sunday but I figured it would be better to just take the day off from running. Amanda and I checked out Leita Thompson Park in Roswell, walking around two miles, but other than I it was a zero.
I think spending Saturday icing and taking Sunday off were smart decisions for the long run. It was certainly a bit of a set back, but if I can be back to running normal by the middle of the week then I should be okay going forward. I'm still chasing that sub 30 time at UNG but overall it was a decent race. I didn't feel great about it. I don't know if I just went to hard early on or if I was a little flat from trying to build up my mileage, but I just kind of felt meh about it. Sometimes that's just how these races go until my training starts to come around in the spring.
Here's what it looked like on Strava. Can you tell where I ate it?
Recovery Beer of the Week: Kennebunkport Blueberry Ale
This is something I've wanted to add to my race reports for a while. I've been doing it on my snapchat (mattmhaley) but I'm adding it to the blog. I'm not a big drinker, but I do enjoy a good beer. After the race and spending Saturday as a debbie downer we were able to do a little exploring on Sunday. On the way home we stopped at a Trader Joe's to check out their selection of beer/coffee and stumbled on Kennebunkport Brewing Company Blueberry Ale. Light and crisp, it was a perfect pairing with dinner on a nice spring-like Georgia night.
I'm pretty much willing to try and beer once, but I get pretty excited whenever I find New England beers down here in the South. We always keep something New England based in the fridge. It's usually Woodchuck, but you're bound to find Hahhpoon or Sam in our fridge at any given time.
Update: The good thing about taking so long to finish this is that I can update everyone with how the week went. I took things easy Monday and Tuesday to be safe, but I was pretty much back to normal by Tuesday morning. I got the long run I was looking for in on Saturday and would have hit 60 miles again had I not run out of time on Thursday morning. I lollygagged getting out the door and ran on some trails that are slow going. I got in five, but had to cut things short so I would be late for work.
No comments:
Post a Comment