Saturday, August 1, 2020
Yes, it's August. Where did the time go? I know, so cliché , but it really is hard to believe. When I think August, I start to think of the summer winding down, even though we still have another seven weeks or so.
Anyhow, August for us heralded in the return of racing! I had been interested in this race before, but this year with COVID it's one of the few "local" races happening at all. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the Governor of CT allowed a return to running races, albeit with caps and restrictions. This one was capped at 50 participants, and my understanding is it's usually a small old-school race anyway. The race filled, but according to results, only 43 showed up and finished. Maybe some signed up but didn't go?
Arrived Matheis Grove at People's Forest at 8:29am for a 9am race. Later than we had planned (my fault with dilly-dallying at breakfast), but it was still plenty of time for me, with no lines for porta-potties and no lines for check in. Matthew went out to warm up, I went to pick up our bibs, and Jana took Brady to take care of his business. The check-in was manned by two guys (in fact, the entire timing and setup was manned by the same two guys), and I just walked up to a picnic table and checked in. Masks were required for check-in only, not for starting line, which I personally was thrilled with. I learned Matthew would be in Wave 2 and I would be in Wave 5 (they called them "Heat B" and "Heat E", actually, but same difference). Waves would consist of three runners, and would be separated by 10 seconds only. I donned my bib, took Brady for a mile warm-up, and was ready to go with plenty of time to spare.
Being almost a two-hour drive from home, I did not expect to see anyone I knew, and was happy to catch up with long time Li'l Rhody runner and Trails to a Cure RD Charlie Iselin.
The start: The timing company lined us up in our respective heats, laid out in the grass with white chalk markers for every participant. He called out each one of us individually and assigned us to our starting point, and then he explained very clearly (twice actually) about the commands he would use ("Wave A, on your mark, Go!", "Wave B, move up" (each group moves up to the next chalk marks), "Wave B, on your mark, ...)
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| Socially distanced in our assigned waves and positions. (You can see Matthew in the second wave, black singlet, bib 415) |
It was good to watch the waves ahead of me, but really, with just ten seconds separating each of the waves, it all moved so quickly. Everyone followed exactly, until Wave D went off (meaning my wave of three is "on deck"), and the guy in my wave to my right decided to follow right behind Wave D and go off also! The starter paused, and you could tell he was frustrated after he tried so hard to explain the rules, so I empathized with him, and said to him, "That guy really screwed up", and as he was busy, he just shook his head in agreement. I wanted to validate to him that his instructions were crystal clear.
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| Cool, old growth pine forest was seen throughout much of today's race. |
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| My "wave mate" was the first person I passed. |
Mile 1: The first 1/4 mile was flat, through a row of old pine trees, and then across a sunny field before crossing a road and onto single-track. Once on the single-track, it immediately turned into an uphill climb. In fact, over the next 3/4 mile, we would climb 350' at an average 12% grade. Runnable, for sure, but slow and tiring. I passed Charlie early on the uphill, and then during the rest of the first mile climb, passed another 4 runners, all of whom were in waves ahead of me (well, except for Dufus from my wave who went with the wave ahead of me). Near the top of the hill, I could hear one woman coming right up on me. She seemed to be talking comfortably and occasionally shouting out a "Woo-hoo" (or something like that), while I'm breathing like a dinosaur. (Note: despite my advanced age, I've never actually heard a dinosaur breathe, but I imagine it to be loud.) I'm ready for her to blow by me at any moment.
Mile 2: I got a little bit of breather here with a short but steep downhill and basically a rolling mile. I could still hear people behind me, but no longer breathing down my neck.
Mile 3: This was by far the toughest mile. Just as in Mile 1, we had a 300' climb here, except that it all occurred in less than 1/2 mile, thus was steeper, plus more technical. I reminded myself not to hike and ran the whole thing, although at a snail's pace (this mile was my only mile at north of 10 minute pace). At the top of the rock climb, there were two hikers. All the hikers I encountered (maybe 10 the whole race) were polite and moved to the side of the trail for me, but these two wore masks, moved 20' away from me, and bent away from the trail to get as far away as possible from me. I respect people's wide varying COVID takes, but this kind of freaked me out.
On the positive side, I was done with steep climbing, I could no longer hear anyone behind me, and there were some amazing, yet fleeting views. The rest of the mile featured some neat ridge running.
Mile 4: Since I hadn't seen any other runners since the end of Mile 1, and hadn't heard any in a while, I honestly figured I would be running by myself for the rest of the race and would need to push myself. Mile 4 opened with a gradual 200' descent, and on a long hill decline I saw one runner a ways ahead of me. Let the hunt begin! I caught up pretty close to him just as we were coming into the single aid station (unmanned) of the whole race. He ran right past it! I contemplated doing that myself for only a second or two, but I was dehydrated and had been looking forward to some water, so I pulled into the station, got a cup of water, and had two swigs before continuing on. The runner was gone by that point, but I felt my actions were important. The climbing resumed, and topped out at a dirt road. As I came up to the road, I saw not only the same runner ahead of me (that bypassed the water stop), but another runner in bright orange shorts ahead of him, and is that Matthew?
Mile 5: When I called out to Matthew, he threw hands up, and between that gesture and that he looked fine, I gathered that he had gone off course. I saw him only on the next straightway and then he was gone. The course turned on to a dirt road for a while, and unfortunately the runner that skipped the water stop was pulling away from me, again. Damn. But thinking about that more, if my intuition is right, that might not be bad. The two times I caught up to him were on a single-track, and the time he pulled away from me (besides when I stopped for water and he didn't) was on a flat dirt road. So as long as we get off the road, maybe I'll have a chance? Sure enough, towards the end of the mile, the course went right off the dirt road and onto single track, and I caught right back up to him, and this time, passed him!
Mile 6: Orange shorts came back into view. The first half-mile was relatively flat, but twisty in places with stuff to jump over, and I caught right up to him. He certainly wasn't letting me pass, so I backed off just a little bit so that I could make sure I saw the rocks and stuff. Then came a huge drop of 300' plus over about 1/2 mile. Great, this is my turf now, and my chance to go. Yelled out "on your left", and as he still didn't give me room, I flew past him in a rocky section when he appeared to slow a bit.
Mile 7: Final mile, and actually less than a mile. I knew the trail would flatten out again soon, for the remainder of the course, and if either of the two guys I just passed re-caught me on the flat open stuff, it was all over then. Pushed hard on the rest of the downhill and single-track, and didn't let up when we got back to the field and pine grove.
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| Running scared in the final section. |
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| Finishing up, with orange shorts not far behind me |
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| 55:38 - gap in staggered start = 54:48 finishing time |
Final results: 54:48, 4th out of 43, 1st in age group. Full results here.
Warm out there, but mostly shaded, so not as hot as I had feared. Downed a bottle of Gatorade, before going for a cool-down with Matthew and Brady. First stop was the Farmington River, a very COLD river that I quickly got numb from and walked back out. The second time I was all in but it was super quick in and out. There was a kid that was afraid of Brady and started crying, so I apologized to his Mom, but she thought Brady was fine and said he was a good dog. The frigid water didn't seem to bother Brady, but then again, I wasn't wearing a fur coat on my dip.
Overall, a super fun trail race in a pretty cool state forest. More hills than I had imagined, but I loved the placement in Miles 1 and 3 to get them out of the way and have fast downhills at the end. Fun race! Now I want to seek out trail races again.
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