Continued my new attitude of not stressing before races by focusing on simply having fun and enjoying the scenery. Ever since Imogene in 2007 I have been transfixed by running at attitude surrounded by the majesty of the high peaks. AK does such a spectacular job describing the feeling of running in the hills, in fact mountain running is what I would prefer to do most had we not decided to live down in Louisville.
I did not really sleep well the night before or the night before that. For some reason my parents up in Dillon felt the need to transport one of their 30 year old mattresses from Vermont out to Colorado...needless to say it is not very comfortable and amazing loud! Yankee frugality just does not go away. Anyway, got up to Dillon on Friday evening with the family. Did a small warm up run for about 30 minutes on Saturday...felt a little slow and out of breath. Started thinking to myself that I should have done more elevation work as my Eldora 10K and the training run the week before up to 9800' probably was not enough. But, I put this out of my mind as I could not do too much about that now. Enjoyed the rest of the day with the kids nonetheless.
Continuing on with the theme of not worrying before races we choose to stay up late the night before the race to finish State of Play. I guess I should have looked at how long the movie was and done that time math after getting the kids down...needless to say it was probably 11pm before we got to bed. Took awhile to fall asleep as usual and then woke up a few times through the night for various reasons. Alarm jarred me from my fitt-ful sleep around 5:15 (not too bad) and promptly worked on my usual PB&J. Had enough time to down the sandwich and enjoy a coffee with dad over Fox News. He seems to have become more conservative as he has gotten older. Made a conscious decision not to talk politics; even though I was not stressed about the race an argument over Obama probably would not have been a good idea.
Dad drove me over getting to Breck around 6:50 or so. Did not do too much of a warmup, spend most of the time circling the Riverwalk Building while taking numerous bathroom breaks. Started to get nervous that I was going to have some GI trouble up in the hills after all of these pitstops before the race. Anyway, focused again relaxing. The race was very small with just over 300 participants between the half, the full and the 5 miler with about 115 of them in the Half. Not overwhelming for sure with a very relaxed atmosphere at the start as is typical with the trails races I have participated in.
The gun went off right on time at 7:30 and we were off. Concentrated on staying slow and controlled for the first mile or so before hitting the trail. Slowly passed the slower runners so as to get a better position on the initial single track. The trail started going gradually up around mile 1.5 or so. The trail dumped onto a road around 3.5 miles or so. At this point I was feeling pretty good following a guy who looked to be about 50+ plus with the chiseled, lean features of someone who has chosen to run and workout rather than play golf. Once I hit the road the grade went up a bit with a few short, steeper sections. This is the first point I chose to walk as it seemed more efficient to speed walk than to run and I was not loosing ground to those around me during a few of these breaks. Hit the first aid station at 4.5 miles in 47 minutes or so which was at about 11,000 feet by this point. Looking at the data I am surprised the station was this high as the climb seemed very gradual from the start...1500 in the bag. Definitely not moving too quickly, but fairly constant. Problem was that I was a bit tired at this point. Had some gatoraide and then attempted to open my GU Chomps. For some reason the package must have gotten a bit hot as the things were all kind of "glued" together. This experience getting the things out of the package should have been a warning as I struggled with these things for about a quarter mile. They just seemed a bit too difficult to eat versus a gel. Got about 2 of them down and continued on.
Beyond 5 miles we entered single track again with some short, steep inclines here and there with everyone around me walking these little sections. I chose to follow suit which seemed fairly comfortable. We crested an incline and then we were presented with our real challenge...probably 1000 feet of climbing up a ridge. We could see all the runners snaking well above us. It was a sight to see! Looking at this scene and then the surrounding high country ridges I was definitely motivated and happy to be participating. This is why I race trails in the mountains!
Just got in line and plodded up. Crested out at 12,500 or about 1500 feet in one mile. Awesome. After cresting we ran along a ridge with the world far below for about a half mile or so. Hit aide station number 2 here. This is the point where the marathon and half-marathon groups split. The marathoners were presented with a left turn pointing higher up on the mountain and we were presented with a dreaded ski resort work road! From this point it was down all the way. The road at this point was very similar to Imogene after the summit in that it was very rough with lots of large rocks to trip up the gait. Was able to move along somewhere between 7 and 8 minute miles only limited by my risk aversion. Had a few more Chomps maxing out at a total of 6 (probably around 150 calories today for 2:27 of running)! In hindsight this lack of calories contributed to my crash as soon as the trail leveled near the bottom of this road. Once I hit mile 11 I was done, the legs just did not want to move. Fortunately it was still kind of down, but I just did not have much left. Hobbled into the finish in 2:27. Not bad I guess, finished in the top quarter of the group with an average pace of just under 11 minute miles.
I am thinking of coming back next year for the full as it surely would have been fun to continue a little longer way up in the mountains as the full traversed another couple of miles above 12,000 feet. The race was very convenient, cheap and beautiful...almost as stunning as Imogene. I am still transfixed by PPM, but this race seems a bit more varied rather than straight up and straight down. I may also consider the Leadville Marathon as well...Brandon wrote a great report on his experience there this year.
A couple of learnings...
1. The hand-held worked well, but I did not drink enough. This is the problem with cool races...I just don't drink enough. I did have two cups of gatoraide, but I did not finish my water bottle. Need to get down at least 15+ ounces an hour in the future
2. Need to try the Chomps again, but I should have finished two full packets on a race of this time; not finishing one definitely contributed to my crash at the end
3. Need more miles on the weekends. I need to get comfortable running over 2 hours
4. Need to get more sleep!
5. Need more hills; probably alternating long runs on the weekends with Front Range Ascents. Need to continued doing the Tuesday Tempo Runs during the summer as these really force me to run fast up!
Overall a great day!
I need to sign up for the Eldora 10K and the Golden Gate Trail Run as these will be my next few races. Will see if something else comes up between now and then.
