Saturday, October 6, 2018
While the Run for the Pumpkins race is now 16 years old, this was the 4th edition of the more popular trail incarnation, and only the 2nd year with an 8K option. With dwindling numbers in the road version in which we took over administration from the Town of Westerly, in 2014 we put out a survey to participants in recent years and asked for feedback on what we could do to make the race more enticing. We indeed received a lot of feedback, and in the end incorporated four suggestions:
- Move the race from a road race to a trail race.
- Adopt an earlier starting time.
- Add a free kids' run, with mini-pumpkins to finishers.
- Incorporate a fall theme into the event.
For the record, some of the interesting feedback we considered and ultimately did not incorporate included:
- Award prizes for the best costumes
- Take out hill and make a flat 2-loop road course
- Add a mixed male/female relay
While I wish the numbers were larger than they are, I would consider our overall changes a success as the number of runners has roughly doubled since implementing the above changes. At this point, we now have three trail races as a series (Wahaneeta, Run for the Pumpkins, Li'l Rhody Runaround). I enjoy and promote every single WTAC event that we have on the annual calendar. All 8 of them! Having said that, of the three trail races, Run for the Pumpkins is my personal favorite. It might be that I have the closest connection to this one, from literally building it with a few of my teammates from the ground up with designing and building some fun trails:
- Hansel & Gretel: single-track through a thick pine forest
- Upper Field XC: XC trail mowed through a remote field
- Pumpkins Connection: twisty climbing single-track with switchbacks
2018 Race: Enough waxing over the nostalgia and history of this race. As eventual 2018 8K winner Mike Galoob remarked to me post-race, this course really combines a series of diverse terrain sections. It is through those lenses that I present my 2018 8K race recap:
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| While we can't guarantee this every year, we had tech shirts for all our pre-registered runners this year! |
Field start:
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| We're off. I love the XC start. (Pic courtesy of Jana) |
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| Mike leading the around the field. (I'm mostly obscured by Thomas in yellow shorts behind Mike) |
High school XC course: After only about 0.3 miles, the course goes into the woods with an immediate 100' climb. I entered the trails in 8th place, with four WHS XC runners just ahead of me. Early in the first hill climb, I pass Aaron. No response. I followed Colby up the hill, where at the top of the hill, Jeff Vuono was course marshal directing 5K runners out into Woody Hill and 8K runners onto the XC loop first. (There were no 5K runners ahead of me. At the risk of over-generalization, for whatever reason, it does seem in most races that the fastest runners choose the longer course.) When the course leveled off, I passed Colby to move into 6th place, with Thomas not far ahead of me, and Tanner a ways beyond that. (I never saw the front-runners Galoob, Muddy, and FiveK).
On the gradual climb up to the upper field, I caught up to Thomas and plotted my next move. Upon entering the field and a very slight downhill, I went past him. Even with the open field, I couldn't see Tanner anymore, but I did gazelle downhill through the woods and caught up with him then.
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| The upper field XC trail on race day (Copied from Kellie Armstrong's Strava post) |
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| Matthew's Bridge: This was his Westerly High School senior project; we crossed this just before the end of the HS XC loop. (Copied from Kellie Armstrong's Strava post) |
Pumpkins Connector: At the end of the high school loop, we start the trickier twistier of the climbs: the Pumpkins Connector trail. At the start of that climb, I was planning my next move to pass Tanner on this trail, and also unfortunately found out from spectators calling the names of Thomas and Colby that I hadn't really shaken either one, as they were right behind me. This is the twistiest section of the race, and I never got the opportunity to pass here. I heard afterwards that runners were cursing my name going up this section (great, love it!), and eventual race winner Mike Galoob told me he would be adding a 2-mile twisty section to one of his trail races as revenge for me!
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| "Tepee" and graves I set up the night before- spectator area just before start of Pumpkins Connector climb |
Woody: After finishing Pumpkins Connector, we're done climbing and go into Woody Hill Management Area. After a very short section on a gravel road (the original Woody Hill Road before the US government bought it up in 1936 and the state closed the road in the 50s), we turn left for a long straight 1/2 mile trail section. I figured Tanner would open up a big gap on me here, but instead I passed him and continued solo.
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| Ghost along the straight trail in Woody Hill: you can see how straight-as-an-arrow this trail is |
Hansel & Gretel: Twisting 0.6 miles through a pine forest. We (actually, Muddy Puddin') gave the trail this name because at least when I first made this trail, the analogy was you needed bread crumbs to find your way back out. A certain high school biking group wanted to use leaf-blowers to blow this trail clear to dirt, at which I expressed outrage, and fortunately it didn't happen and remains a nice bed of pine needles to run on. I got in a groove on this trail, and looking back on the Strava fly-by, it looks like I actually closed the gap a bit on Tommy and Muddy ahead of me, so I wish I had seen them and tried to take advantage of that.
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| Setting up ghosts in the dark the night before, these three guys were twisted together and inseparable, so I just hung the trio together on Hansel & Gretel |
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| Gravestone at the end of Hansel & Gretel Trail |
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| "The rock" on Hansel & Gretel- not that it's that big of a rock, but certainly doesn't do it justice with a night shot! |
Downhill finish: After you exit Hansel & Gretel, there is just over a mile to go and just about all downhill. As I got closer to returning to the lower field, I picked up the pace just a bit, especially as I didn't know where the three high schoolers behind me were, and if they caught up to me on the field, I would be done for. Near sprinted across the field, and it was only after finishing that I learned the three high schoolers that had been near me said they were pretty much done after the Pumpkins Connector climb and were all more than a minute behind me.
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| Sprinting to the finish |
Final results: 34:15, 4th overall, 1st in age group. Full results here.
Post-race I was thrilled to hear Colburn come up during awards ceremony just to tell me and the crowd that he wanted to express that he felt that the course was exceptionally well marked, and that for pretty much the entire course he could see either a flag, a ghost, a mile-marker pumpkin, a grave, or a combination. We don't always get it right, but we had over 25 signs on the course today and over 700 flags, so it's good to hear when your efforts pay off. Thanks to all the club volunteers that made this race possible!
Waterford, CT
Sunday, October 7, 2018
A bit of impromptu entry, as Jana signed up the two of us just a few days before. I've run this before, and it's a mostly flat and pretty fast road course, with a downhill finish. I ran my 3rd fastest 5K ever here in 2015 in a 17:35, before lowering my PR ever so slightly the following month at Avondale 5K to a 17:32. Obviously, I wouldn't be coming close to either of those times today, but after a disappointing 5K post-injury debut at Schonning in late August of 19:57, followed by Ocean State XC 5K in September in a decent time of 19:06, I was really hoping to break 19.
After a short solo warm-up, I lined up on the starting line (that's a good place to line up, right?) next to fellow WTAC member Brandy LeClair. There was just one other fast-looking runner on the line, a 19-year old in short shorts and a singlet, and at the gun, he took off like he had been shot out of the gun. He turned out to be legit, and after the first couple of turns, I never saw him again. Brandy went out in 2nd, I followed behind her, and that's how the race stayed the whole way. I went through the mile in about 5:50, and slowed from there. The course is an OAB, and while I don't like turnarounds, this course does it really smartly with a small loop turnaround in a park setting. Way better than a cone turnaround.
On the way back, my legs were screaming at me, likely due to still being quite sore from yesterday's Run for the Pumpkins 8K and all the setup and cleanup work. Having runners come back at me was not only helpful to see that the 4th place runner was quite a bit behind me, but also hearing some encouragement and seeing other runners helped take my mind off the task at hand. At one point, a runner coming towards me went across to my side of the street just to give me congrats and a high-five. I'm not usually a high-fiver or hand-slapper while racing, but given his efforts, how could I refuse? After the 5K'ers went by, I got to see the 10K runners coming towards me so that kept my mind busy as well. I barely kept Brandy in my sight the whole way, and before you know it, we were re-entering Harkness Memorial Park, the site of the race start and finish. 18:43: I did it!
Cooled down with Brandy, where I learned she not only just had a 40-second PR (18:12), but also is running NYC marathon in a few weeks! Got to see fellow club runners Denise and Jana finishing up their races, and then hung around for awards as it started to rain.
Final results: 18:43, 3rd overall, 1st in age group. Full results here.
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