Monday: 0 Miles
Tuesday: 8 Miles
Ran a Burlingame mix again but this time exploring some side roads in Charlestown I haven't been on. Worse route than usual and a scorcher at 87 degrees, didn't feel great and much slower than last week despite being on faster terrain. On the bright side, had a nice dip in the pond after, although it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.
Wednesday: 13 Miles
Easy 5 mix in Bradford/Woody Hill with Dad and Brady in morning. Bradford roads plus XC/pumpkins trails.
8 in evening. Went hard for the fun run CR, but went out too hard in 4:51. Was actually feeling great at that point, and kept a solid pace through 1.7ish miles. Nearly hit by a biker turning onto Bayberry, glad the guy at the corner said absolutely nothing. Anyway, pace completely dragged and I had no strength in the back half. Could have saved the attempt or come close to the CR with a strong 3rd mile but one of my weakest ever 3rd miles in a road 5K in 5:20. Finish 0.2 was even slower. Went out too fast but also clearly didn't have it today. A little disappointing, finished in 16:26 a good 20s off the CR but also 10s slower than I ran 2 weeks prior which was not an all out effort. I believe right around 16:00 for the 5K GPS split so certainly not terrible, but not a great effort either.
Thursday: 10 Miles
Around the pond with Dad. We had both gone hard at the fun run so we kept it slow. Humidity was bad and we both really struggled on Shore road and felt like crap. Okay first half, tired second.
Friday: 8 Miles
Normal Friday Ninigret run but nice with the rain.
Saturday: 10 Miles
People's Forest trail race. After last racing in February, it was nice to return to a real race here. Seems like the low key events are slowly coming back, and it's great that race directors try hard to have them with the new restrictions (It seems like some just cancel because it's the easy thing to do). While most big races are cancelled (most marathons), there are still quite a few events that look okay to be held in the fall, barring any major spikes with the virus. (see my updated 2020 race page for a list of races I'm considering that will likely be held). All the way back in the spring, I was confident that if any race was going to happen, it was this one, as it typically only has a very small field around 50. They capped the race at 50 this year and we signed up about a week ago.
I didn't sleep particularly well the night before, although I was glad to get out of work earlier than expected. However, I was pretty tired headed up in the morning. We were running later than anticipated but fortunately the ease of check in and lack of bathroom lines made the pre-race routine mostly normal. The start is where the changes/restrictions occured, as we were called to the line by three person waves. I was disappointed to be in wave B as I wanted to contend for the win, but once I learned there were only 3 people per wave and 10s between waves, I realized it wasn't a big deal. One of the guys in Wave A looked fast, fit, confident and experienced. I knew immediately he could be a serious contender. The other two guys looked fast and fit as well, but were much more questionable. They could be fast, but there was a decent chance they just seeded themselves way too fast. In contrast, the guys in Wave C were talking about how they were going to walk certain portions of the course which told me immediately they didn't belong that far up.
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| Solo in Wave B |
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| Pine needle start/finish through trees |
A little weird with the staggered but after my 10s delay, I was off. I tried to start fairly fast but found that it was challenging as I did feel a little tired and I didn't have great traction on pine needles/dirt. However, by the end of the first quarter mile, I had passed the third guy and slipped into 2nd at the beginning of the trail portion which began with a 500ft climb over about .7 miles. It was a tough climb and I couldn't quite close the gap on the first guy, the experienced one as expected. The gap remained at 20m or so, but he was strong. Around the mile mark, we hit a descent and suddenly, he was just gone. Even on longer stretches of trail, he was nowhere to be seen or heard. It felt very likely that he had already run away with it and I had to now think about defending 2nd place. I was somewhat baffled about how he had dusted me so early. I not only expected to win, but didn't really expect that there would be much of a fight for it. Yet, not only was there someone to contend with, but I couldn't even keep up him. Guess I came in a little cocky but just very surprising for a remote trail race with less than 50 people.
Mile 2 had some rolling hills but no serious climbs or descents, however it was more technical. In getting completely dropped, I think I let up a bit as I didn't really feel I was going that fast/hard even though I never dropped my race mentality. Mile 3 began with a brutal 400ft climb in .4 miles. The end of it was very steep and rocky, with a short section over 30%. It was hard to not to walk since running was so slow and difficult but I did my best to power through it although felt nowhere near as strong as the first climb. For comparison, I was 5:30s GAP on the first climb segment and was only 6:40s GAP on this one. I think I'm decent at the uphills, but the steeper they are, the worse I do. There was a nice lookout at the top of the climb which I briefly enjoyed before continuing.
This was followed up with a long downhill. I honestly don't remember any of it but it wasn't long before I came to the waterstop. There were about 5 cups with water poured on them in the table, everyone after that would have to pour the water themselves in the empty cups. I actually stopped to drink as I figured it would be rude of me to not drop my cup in the trash next to the table, but then remembered I was racing and continued, taking a quick drink, pouring the rest on my head then dropping it.
It was just after that where my race completely fell apart. I came out to a dirt road and saw three flags in a line to the right, however I didn't see any flags down the road and continued straight on the singletrack up a hill, assuming the flags meant take a slight right onto the trail as for some reason I thought I was supposed to continue to blue-yellow (I had read the course description prior to the race and read that the main loop was essentially blue-blue/yellow-blue/orange which was probably the reason I continued straight). Ran for a few minutes and after not seeing any blazed, I turned and confirmed I had gone the wrong way. I knew I had lost some major time and was just hoping my gap on third was enough that I would still be in second. Came out of the trail to see that was not the case, one of the guys in Wave A was ahead of me and I heard my Dad yell to me to turn back on the road. I accelerated on the dirt road in an attempt to reclaim second and get back in the race. I surged past the Wave A runner and asked him if he was in second to which I got no response (to be fair, it seemed like english is not his first language).
The last two miles were very runnable downhill. I eventually caught sight of the true second place runner and set my focus on running him down. This was confirmed when a hiker yelled out to him that he was 6 minutes behind the first guy. The hiker gave me encouragement and said my name in a very familiar voice, but I wasn't able to catch his face. I eventually came up on the second place guy but had to run just behind him for a minute or so as we were on a tight and technical downhill and if I tried to pass I'd probably break some bones. I passed him on a wider section and was surprised to quickly drop him, although I was definitely hammering at this point. Finished up the fun downhill singletrack, a short climb and exited the trails back out onto the field. Hit the last quarter mile pretty hard and had a decent kick although once again didn't have traction on the pine needles and ran out of steam somewhat. Finished just over 54 minutes, over 6 behinds the winner.
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Not really sure how to evaluate the race. I felt good, my effort was pretty good, and except maybe mile 2/3, I felt that I ran fairly strong and fast throughout. However, because I went off course a pretty good time was turned in a not so great one. It turns out I went off course for nearly 4 minutes, so adjusted I likely would have been 50:xx and closer to the winner than 3rd place, which is certainly a performance I would satisfied with (aside from a few outliers in the mid to high 40s, typical winning times are in the low 50s). However, that's not the time I ran. So, I guess I'm pleased with my effort but not happy with the result.
Turns out the winner is very good. He has a world athletics profile (you need to be pretty good to have one) with PRs of 1:09 for the half and 2:32 for the full. Even if I trained for and excelled in a half marathon, I'm not hitting 1:09 for a while. He also has a 100% percentile age graded score on ultrasignup and appears to have the course record at this race in 45 and change. A bit of an embarrassing loss for me as I've been talking up my trail game this year and he was 45 years old, but his stats don't lie- he's super fast. To be fair his PRs were set in his 30s, but he's clearly still got it.
Full results here.
Another interesting discovery that makes my wrong turn looks less boneheaded is that this was the first year the course turned right (possibly 2019 as well, I couldn't find much data there) on that dirt road instead of going straight on the singletrack like I did, so in another edition I would have gone the right way. It also turns out that the trail I took was basically a spur and I had continued for another minute, I would reconnected with the route and only lost a minute or so with the extra distance (you could argue then that I wouldn't have run the full course, but I don't think anyone would care that I did the longer distance). Additionally, I found two people who posted strava that also went straight there, although they continued on and ran the full spur.
Anyway, overall a mixed result in a fun trail race. Bad result overall but good effort. Don't trust my instincts next time I guess?
Sunday: 14 Miles
5 in the morning, felt exhausted post race and during the morning as well. Felt extremely weak from the start, was going to attempt a long run in Charlestown running E-W beach loop first then a loop with Burlingame campground roads, Klondike and Ross Hill but feeling terrible, I cut it really short.
Fortunately Keith was doing a double in the evening so I did 9 on local roads with him and felt so much better than the morning. Local roads plus a short loop in Champlin trails. Didn't do a great job of showing my trail skills as I nearly fell 2-3 times.
Weekly Total: 61 Miles
YTD Total: 1,968 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Racing again, even if I didn't get the results I wanted. I'm at least somewhat fit, which is enough to chase PRs. They were both low-key efforts as well, neither really means all that much.
Weekly Lowight: Generally feeling exhausted on runs and once again having to work for that 60 miles which came so easy just a few weeks ago.
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