RUN 30 miles in 5hrs 53 mins, 1st OVERALL!!
[A few weeks later I'm still waiting for official lap times and results. Athlinks has what looks like 11 womens in the run, but me as the 2nd overall and 14/14 from my AG...so ImaGonna quit waiting and post this]
Spoiler alert--I WON!! That feels awfully weird to say.
I had three goals coming into this race: don't get injured, get under 6 hrs, and win it. And I mean win it all.
For the days leading into the race, I kept having bad visions of injury. Breaking an ankle on the course, falling, something that would require rest and recovery and ice and maybe even worse. All mental tricks.
On top of that, I fully admit to scoping out my competitors (all 7-8 of them) to see what their history was. I was feeling good, things were looking good...
It was odd to be returning to the race without TH, but via email and mental replay I had contact with her. So imagine my SURPRISE when I sit up in the truck (where I was resting prior to the race, avoiding the crowds of friends milling around the site) and see a SLTC logo walking towards me!! She drove up to surprise me! This totally made my day, and changed my mood entirely. I went from having no one to share it with, to having someone to look forward too :)
It was the perfect day weatherwise: sunny, some winds, low 40's at the start. Leaves were on the trail, but not so much that I couldn't see the trail under it. Pre-race prep moved along (with TH keeping me on task) and it wasn't until we'd lined up that I realized the runners were facing backwards at the start line. We were running the course BACKWARDS! Well that changes my mental course movies.
The course is 3 10-mile loops, with an aid station at about mile 5. The first 5 miles are hilly but less so than the last 5 miles.
Lap 1: 1:58 (was closer to 1:55 but had to include wait at porta potty)
The first loop started off with some struggle to find a pace. I've learned this is normal for me. I have lots of energy, I'm anxious to go, but my energy flattens out after a few miles and I get a bit of "OMG I have a looong way to go..." unease. Moments of "I can't do this", "I'm too tired", and "What was I thinking?" start rolling through my head. I've learned to run through it.
So I settled in during these first miles, trying to remember the course in reverse. I was able to identify most landmarks and hills from April. The meadow loop near the end, the squeeze between the trees, the steep hills up from the creek, the graveyard. It went pretty fast and soon enough I was at the AS. After some confusion on my part on how to exit the AS and get back on trail, I entered the really hill portion of the run.
These hills were much easier to remember! They are hard to walk, let alone run. So I walked, as did everyone else around me. I was coming up on the 10 mile runners and enjoying their company, knowing that would be gone in the next loops. Difficult, but pretty--that's how I would describe these miles. The leaves were yellow, then brown, then orange, then yellow. Down to the flats, up the hill, around the bend, back to the flats, over a small creek, up Leafy Gulch (FeeLee today!!), over the major creek (stayed dry), over the sand, up to Totem. Around Totem and through the big, crunchy, papery leaves, and back to start after a few more minor creek crossings and hills. The meadow loop was much longer than I remembered, then TH was at the top of the last hill! She helped me move along through the lap and get back out the door.
Lap 2: 2:00
I had some stomach upset at the beginning of this lap, and I'm not sure why. It might be the HR excitement of seeing the lap go by; it might be the all soft foods I ate the past 24hrs; it might be too hard of a pace? But I'll be honest here, and admit that I suspect it was a bolus of adrenaline at TH's update that there were 2 women about 5 minutes ahead of me. My mind races--3rd place?! Can I make up 5 minutes?! Stress stress stress!!
Let it go. Re-adjust the goals. Run MY race, see what happens. Twenty miles to go, way to early to get my head worked up over that. But I was still disappointed in what I thought would be a non-first finish.
I let it go. I re-adjusted to focus on the sub 6 hr goal, and not getting injured.
Once I did this, I settled back in. For most of the first 5 miles I didn't see another runner so it was a boost to see people at the AS. I half-filled the Camelbak here, used the first hill to work out the air bubbles, then settled back in, cheered that I was half way done and feeling awesome.
It was around mile 17 that I thought I saw another woman ahead of me, not certain it was a woman but that was my guess. Realizing that I was catching her, I figured I'd go by her soon enough. But she disappeared from the trail after a minute or so. Bathroom break? Off course? Was I imagining things? There was some grumbling in the first lap about some areas of the course being hard to follow, and this course would be easy to cut if you knew how.
And suddenly I'm back in negative-head land, grumbling that if this woman beat me because she cut the course, I'd be pissed. I didn't even know if it was a woman, if she lost the course, or anything at all! Let it go!
Then near Totem I came across a pie-plate arrow backwards, meaning I run up behind the arrow. NUTS. Off course! Stop. Think. Look. (Maybe I should have Looked and Thought earlier before going off course). I knew where I was, I could see the horses and recognized the area. So I went backwards on the course to find Totem, walked around Totem to "make up the distance" I missed, then set back out on the course. Relieved, but feeling a little guilty about the cut. This really put my mind back right regarding the "other woman" I thought I saw earlier.
Back to the meadow, up the hill, forget to tell TH all the things I wanted to tell her, refill the Camelbak, back out for Lap 3. Her update: "a woman was 5 minutes ahead".
Lap 3: 1:50-ish
Wait, did TH mean ONE (1) woman was head of me. Or did she mean of the women ahead of me, the closest one was 5 minutes? Either way dammit, the same 5 minute lead, meaning we were on the same pace. For me to catch her, she'd have to make a mistake in pacing or nutrition. More mental stress. Let It Go.
By now, with only 10 miles to go, I was more willing to push my pace. I knew 10 miles was easy, but I held to my initial plan of holding on to a safe pace until mile 25. At that last AS, I got more water, another boost, and some peanut butter nutella rolls (sadly wrapped in flour tortillas, of which the squirrels became beneficiaries). Five more miles. Open it up, and go-go-go. I was feeling so good at mile 25 that I wondered if I was being too conservative. Through miles 25+ I was passing people, one after another. It's a boost to pass people who are walking as it makes me feel faster, and I always wonder what it took to reduce them to a walk late in the race. Poor pacing? Injury? Cramps? Whatever, it validated my conservative pacing early on.
I caught sight of the woman ahead of me coming up into Totem, which by the way was marked by pink tape and I just missed it before, and I could see that I didn't cut the course by much (if anything I probably added to it). How did I know it was a woman? Pink hat, green top, pink sports bra, pink compression socks, and a black/rainbow cheetah print tight. She was easy to see. And she was walking up hills.
Hills were a focus of my training for this race, and it was time to make use of it. I followed her through Totem and passed her shortly after we returned to the single track. It seemed odd that as I approached she didn't look back, even when I called up to her, and I found out why: loud music in headphones. I'm sorry to say I scared her! But that's not my problem now. My problem was to make solid my pass and leave her well enough behind me so I didn't have to worry about her coming up behind.
With 2.5 miles more to go, my HR elevated and mind racing, I set out to run the last miles fast. A few peeks over my shoulder showed the pass was solid, and now I was looking ahead for the other female. I had nothing to lose at this point by going too hard! So I did, watching the Garmin for my sub-6 goal and not seeing anyone but men ahead of me.
Around the meadow, up the hill (gotta love a race that ends with a hill like that), a "Yay For Sub 6" to TH, a joke about having enough time for a bathroom stop, then FINISH!
It wasn't until a race volunteer came up to me as I was coughing and leaning on my knees that I realized my placing. When he handed me a post with two signs nailed to it, I was initially confused. But he and TH explained -- I WON! OMG. I took the post and fell to my knees. I'm so HAPPY TH was there to see that, and there to share the morning with me. It would have felt so ...empty... otherwise.
Also if she wasn't there, I wouldn't have walked around, ate something, and rested. Haha, she jokes about Momming me, but I need it!
This was the best way to end my 2013 season--on top with all goals hammered down tight. Oh yeah, 2013 was ultra-cool.
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