Charlestown, RI
Sunday, November 15, 2020
This year's race was hugely successful, and even sold out, but it wasn't by any means an easy path to host. Where do I start with this race report? I'll go back to the outcome of last year's race, where we hosted the USATF-NE Trail Championships and modified to a 10-mile course as is consistent with previous championship courses. I don't want to spend a lot of time with repeated analysis of a race that happened a year ago, but while I (and the club!) had been very excited last year about hosting the championships, a new 10-mile course, and the expected surge of USATF-NE trail championships, let's just say the race did not meet expectations.
2019 backdrop: Many 4-milers went off course, flags and signs were inadvertently pulled up, and on the 10-mile race, after all the effort and extra work of many in making it an official USATF-NE race, it only added 17 USATF-NE runners! (There were 25 registered USATF-NE runners, but 8 of them are regulars of this race, so net gain of 17.) The initial results for the 10-mile race were long delayed and then incorrect! Accordingly, the awards ceremony became a mess with having to ask incorrectly designated winners to return their awards, and while it was known ahead, the weird way that CT is not part of USATF-NE led to confusion and disappointment for some. Finally, while there were clearly people who voiced that they liked the 10-mile course and the addition of single-track and reduction of asphalt, there were many that wrote in to say we should not have tried a new course, they didn't enjoy it, and even suggested they may not return if we didn't revert to the 8-mile course. Ugh. Not exactly one of my shining moments as Race Director.
Contrasts: So I'm done ranting about last year's race, but I wanted to give that backdrop. Here is my point and contrasts: Last year we had high expectations for a very successful race, and due to a number of issues as stated, including some things I could have done better, it didn't turn out well. This year (2020), due to COVID, we had low to no expectations on the race even happening, and jumped through many hoops and made many modifications, including last-minute changes required by the state, and in the end we had a very successful event.
2020 success: I won't go into all the boring back and forth details, additional paperwork, safety plans, etc, but instead I want to extend a huge gratitude to our runners who believed in us, our awesome club volunteers who came out in droves, and the state DEM who worked with us with different options when the governor in the final week before the race further reduced attendance limits and imposed additional COVID rules, when it would have been easier for the DEM to just revoke our state permit.
It was a long day with having the 4-milers start two hours before the 8-milers. The deal we worked out with the state was to have the majority of 4-milers completed and offsite before the 8-milers arrived. After being part of a team to mark the course on Saturday, on Sunday I was out at the race site from about 5:45am to 1:30pm, and there were many other awesome volunteers that gave similar time.
4-mile race:
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| Arrived early and coned off the new starting area before any cars could park in that area |
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| It was a cold morning below freezing, or at least it was up to and including the 8:30am 4-mile start (Westerly Sun pic, I think) |
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| Masked registration crew in the COVID era (Westerly Sun pic) |
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| We couldn't block Sanctuary Road this year, because of our staggered starts (I don't usually take any pics at our WTAC race starts, but since I wasn't running for two hours...) |
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| It seemed a little weird to start in the parking area, but it all worked out well with waves of 10 every 30 seconds |
The 4-mile race went off quite well. Friends Tommy and Shara broke the course records! (Note to self to update our course records on web.) When I learned that a fast young racer went off course, I went into momentary panic. Oh no, a repeat of last year?! How many went off course? What did we miss this year in marking, or were more flags and signs pulled again? I fretted for naught, as I learned he was the only one off course, and while he was upset, his own father told me later that the course was well marked and clear and the youngster just didn't pay attention. Whew! I'm sorry for him, but happy that no course issues this year.
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| This was the area last year where so many 4-milers went off course and inadvertently started a second loop. (This is Mile 3, in Kimball Preserve) --- As you can see, there are a lot of leaves on this part of the course already. Last year, many runners took a right where you see the new left "Trail Race" arrow above, but this year blocking that spur trail with the left arrow, plus some additional flags seemed to cure the problem. |
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| Near the finish of the 4-mile course, during the race. In fact, the 4-mile is more picturesque than the classic 8-miler. |
8-mile race: As this is the event I ran (my 17st consecutive), I'll switch narrative here to describe my own race. I was self-seeded at 18:10 for a 5K, which put me towards the back of the 2nd wave. In the first wave were a lot of the very fast runners who had come out for our entire Fall Trail Race Series this year.
After running the perimeter of the parking lot, the entire rest of the race course was exactly the same as the classic 8-miler we've run for decades. Most of our wave of 10 stayed together for the first mile or so. Recent WHS grad Sebastian was pretty chatty, and it was obviously much easier for him to run and talk than it was for me (I ran a 6:06 first mile split, and since the first 3/4 mile is on dirt road, we likely ran sub-6 here). I ducked into the single-track just ahead of a blond 16-year old Fitch High School runner (Carson Riley) and teammate Dave Goodrich.
The rest of the first half of the race was pretty nondescript. This part of the course is mostly flat and fast. My 2nd mile split was a fast 6:01. Carson and Dave were right with me or just behind me as far as I could tell.
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| Mile 4 - coming into the water stop (Pic courtesy of Chris Garvin, who was manning the water stop with his wife Katie) |
Back half: I much prefer the 2nd half of the course, as it gets a bit more technical (it's relative here; I wouldn't call the course technical by any means, but there are are a few rock gardens and boulders), and also can become a game of endurance versus short-distance speed. Things switched up a little here in the second half.
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| Some of the more technical terrain on the back half (Photo courtesy Mike Crutchley) |
Just before the short section of Buckeye Brook Road, Sebastian went by me with ease. Clearly he had taken it easy the first half. He kindly put in his Strava comment, "I’m glad you weren’t running all out. ... letting me beat you is always nice". Um, yeah, we'll just go with that! I could still see Sebastian ahead as I came up on Matt Ridley, from the 1st wave. Uh-oh, I guess he's not having his best day; he later relayed that he had twisted his ankle during the race. I waited until after we got past the boulder scramble, and then went past him and never saw him again until the end.
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| About Mile 5 (Pic courtesy of Mike Crutchley) |
The last couple of trail miles is very often where I am running as an island, with no one in sight in front or behind, and I just naturally slow down. I lamented that this would likely be the case again this year with the staggered waves separating things even more, but then I got thrown a bone! Coming up into one of rock gardens (mile 6 or so), I spied a runner in front of me. This was exciting and invigorated a chase in me. He turned out to be Jake Cardello, who is only 22, but has run a number of trail races, and is lot faster than me. Over the next mile or so, I inched closer and closer to him, and just before the end of the trail portion, I had finally come right up on him and could almost touch him.
But alas we exited onto the dreaded road and any chances of me passing him vanished. Or did they? It just occurred to me (yeah, I'm a little slow) that I don't actually need to cross the finish line ahead of him to beat him, but rather since his wave started 30 seconds before mine, I just need to stay within 30 seconds of him. OK, then. Let's go! I pushed the road very hard, running my last mile in a 5:43 pace, and finished just 10 seconds behind Jake, which really means I finished 20 seconds ahead of him in the final results.
Final results: 50:58, 9th overall of 105, 2nd in 50+ age group. Full results here.
So everything went quite well really. Personally, this was my fastest Rhody in five years, so I'm stoked with that. After two years beset with physical issues, I feel like I'm finally running well this fall, and certainly having people in sight almost the entire race helped push me as well.
From a RD and club standpoint, I'm ecstatic with both the way this race and the Fall Series turned out in spite of the pandemic. We were able to get in the races just before races shut down in nearby CT until mid-January and races in RI shut down for the first two weeks of December. Here is just a small sampling of the many comments received (all positive this year!!) specifically on the Rhody race:
- My first time doing the Li’l Rhody. Great job despite the challenges. A big thank you to you and your dedicated crew.
- I just wanted to say thanks again for putting on a really fun event. It felt well organized and safe.
- Congrats on a great race today. I just wanted to say THANK YOU so much for everything you did for the race today. I am sure it wasn't easy to coordinate and implement all the rules and regulations, but as a participant it was such a great race.
- Your race was well organized from start to finish and I want to thank you and your crew for putting on this race during the COVID19 situation. Excellent and strong verbal instructions prior to the race.
- I want to compliment you on a very well organized event. Everything seemed very safe and everyone was so happy to be there. I am very excited for next year and will keep my eye out for other events that you put on.
- Just wanted to send a quick thanks for putting on this event! You guys did a great job organizing, Keeping everyone safe, making last minute changes and filling us all in in order to keep this event going for 2020. It was my first time at the Rhody runaround, and it definitely won’t be my last.
And as far as the series, I am really hoping to capitalize on the success of this year's series (Pumpkins and Rhody sold out; Wahaneeta had a record number of finishers) and that more runners return next year, even when the choice of races likely expands as COVID gets under control. To that end we sent out a brief optional survey to runners who ran 2 or more of our series, in order to get insight before the club board plans our 2021 events, and we got a 67% response rate! I know I am NOT a fan of taking web surveys, so I appreciate the time runners took. While most of the responses were not surprising, I'll just highlight three questions here where the responses did come in a little surprising:
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| Almost 80% of respondents indicated a preference to retain some form of wave staggered starts post-COVID. That was a real surprise to me. |
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| 60% of respondents asked us to consider adding one more race (one added in comments to add two more races; another added in comments to bring back the 10-mile Rhody as a spring race) |
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| It's almost unanimous that respondents are fine with either "old school" OR a mix of old school and traditional races. This is good news for us, as it's frankly a lot more work and expense to get sponsors, purchase swag, etc. |
It was with complete sincerity that we asked for runners to help us plan for next year, and accordingly, after our December meeting of the WTAC Board of Directors, I can tell you we will be honoring the majority survey responses in 2021 in some fashion. Details to be worked out, and slate of events to be posted by January 1. Stay safe, and stay tuned ...
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