WORST RACE REPORT EVER

A funny thing happened on my way to using the Trail Mix 25K as a long, hard run; I ended up running pretty well.

I drove to the park early on Saturday so I could get in a long (5 mile) warm-up. I wanted to run 20-22 miles for the day and I figured once the race was over I’d start visiting, so I’d better get in a long warm-up.

The race course is kind of like a “figure 8” with a north loop and a south loop. Each loop has a rather large hill (or two on it). To make matters worse, you have to run 2 laps. My objective was to run an easier first lap and then pick up the pace during the second lap. This type of race strategy definitely requires checking your ego at the door, especially when you’re standing at the starting line and you see a bunch of people you know – including triathletes that I trained with for the last two years.

I stuck with my strategy and was a little surprised by how many people were in front of me. By about a half mile I had worked up to some familiar faces; John (who’d go on to finish 76th), Terry (42nd) and Dylan (62nd). About 2.5-3 miles into the race is the first big hill. We run up the backside of a ski hill and then down the ski hill. At this point I came upon Matt (113th), Rob (46th) and Norm (63rd).

Nothing exciting happened until the big hill on the south loop, which is about 5 miles into the race. That’s when I saw Jim (55th). Once up this hill I began to roll pretty well. I was actually shocked when I came through the halfway point in 56:16 (7:15 pace). Two weeks ago I ran the Ron Daws 25K in 1:51:43 (7:12 pace). While that was a training run too, the effort felt a lot harder than what I was putting forth on the trails. A quick calculation and my goal for the day became to negative split by 2+ minutes and to break 1:50.

During the second loop I entertained myself by counting the number of runners that I passed. Given that there was a 50K race going on at the same time, it was a little difficult. I ended up counting 17 runners, but looking at the results, I think I may have missed a few. I know I passed about 6-7 guys before passing Kelly (37th).

I ended up running a 3-minute negative split; 53:15 (6:51 pace) and finished in 18th place (out of 450) with a 1:49:31 (7:04 pace). Of course, now that I’ve looked at the results, I’d have liked to have run a couple of minutes faster to catch a few more people that I know.

And looking at the results from both 25Ks, it looks like everyone that ran both races ran between 1 to 4 minutes slower on the trails, while I ran 2 minutes faster. Best of all, like I mentioned earlier, this race felt about 10 times easier.

Afterwards I even managed a 1.5 mile cool-down, which gave me 22 miles for the day and 55 miles for the week (I never got out for a run on Friday) on 5 runs.

Alright, that’s probably the worst written race report ever, so I’ll stop here.

Quote of the day;

“Chart your progress by your own standards, and don’t drive yourself too hard seeking to match somebody else’s.” – Alberto Salazar