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I ran this little race on Saturday. It was supposed to be a nice, long
trail run in between the Pemberton 50K and the HATRun 50k. 3 weeks post one
and pre the other. A great way to do a long run with friends and not lose
any training. We ran about half of the trail in January when it was cold
and *frozen*, and it was a really nice trail...not too many hills, roots or
rocks..right next to this small stream.
That was before the ice storm on Feb. 14th, the snow storm that dumped 3-4"
of snow last Sunday, and the rainstorm which dumped an additional inch of
rain Thursday night...
Ed, the race director, said the conditions were "a bit treacherous at the beginning", with ice on the paved trail before we entered the woods.
He forgot to mention the ice completely covering the trail for most of the
next 8-9 miles.
I was trying to think of ways to describe this race while I was running it.
Think of an ice rink and how the Zamboni comes out and smooths the ice. Add
a couple of roots and trees back in so that you *think* you might have a
chance of running on it...but then tilt the whole thing up on a 30-degree
angle, put a rushing creek at the bottom and then run your race across it.
That sort of describes a lot of the first 9 miles of this race.
Then, when you get away from the ice....shoe-sucking mud. Slipping,
sliding...falling, cake the bottom of your shoes, drain the energy from your
legs..mud. Stream crossings filled high with runoff and icemelt. Fields
soggy with high water, more mud, some ice. Then somewhere around halfway
through the race, add a stiff breeze. Fallen trees to climb over or go
around. Mud...always the mud. Slush. Icy slush. Throw in the biggest
hills in the last 10 miles..at least they were dry.
But, add temps around 50, bright sun, some clouds, runs through pine
forests on carpets of pine needles, blessed sections where the trail was
level, dry and warm. The solitude of running alone in the forest. Friendly
volunteers.
And a thankfully short memory for the difficult parts. :)
As for my race...I did OK on the ice, tho I fell a couple times hard on my
knees. I struggled a bit in the mud. All the sudden slipping sideways or
trying to save myself from falling tweaked my back a bit so it wasn't happy.
Somewhere around 20mi in, my left knee started to tighten up and my IT band
started hurting pretty badly. I had gotten quite a ways ahead of my group
of friends on the ice, but I saw them slowly getting closer and they finally
caught me about 3mi from the finish. I couldn't stay w/ them...my knee
wasn't letting me go downhills well, but they're a loud bunch and I could
hear them, which made me smile and gave me energy.
I'm a little disappointed that I didn't finish stronger, but I'll get over
it. I just hope everything feels recovered by HAT...this race took a lot
more out of me than I expected. My sciatic nerve was quite painful during
the ride home, but it's better today. My knee feels fine today, so I'm not
sure what the ITB pain was about. Fatigue, I guess.
I also hope that we have a lot of warm, sunny, breezy days from now until
March 24th to dry up the trails!
Laura Falsone
Annapolis, md
I forgot to add in how (as we were sliding sideways across the ice) the girl
in front of me just kind of threw out, "Hey, did anyone tell you this race
was really 28 miles long...not 26?"
Oh, great...an ultra...
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