This was a planned rest week for me so I dropped my long run and total miles down this week. The schedule called for a 12 mile long run so I decided to run it at the Wrentham 20K Forest Challenge. I had no intention of racing. I just wanted to have some company. It turned out I had some great company. I meet a very nice runner named Streph who is a high school math teacher. We ran together for about 7 or 8 miles of the race. We also meet a couple of younger guys from Rhode Island. The four of us, along with a fifth runner, formed a tight group and settled into a good pace. We ran all the flat, downhill and small uphill sections of the course but walked the long, steep hills. Unfortunately, there were many of them.
The Wrentham course was very challenging with a lot of hills. Hills were the last thing I wanted to see after running 4.5 hours over the mountains of the Wapack trail. I got lost twice during the race due to my poor powers of observation. I also have several near falls on the rock outcrops along the course. My Merrell Overdrives did not give me any traction in the wet conditions. Even walking did not prevent slipping on the many rocks.
The extreme humidity brought here by topical storm Hana really wore me down. I also did not carry enough calories with me and I crashed major league around 9 - 10 miles. During the last 2 miles I had to resort to a mix of walking and slow jogging but I still managed to run under 2.5 hours.
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Until next time...
This was one of the races that inspired me to run trails. It was also a race I thought I'd be running before we moved away from Bellingham, though there is always next year!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, I am a little wary of my heels becoming achy, but I am still able to run, and isn't that the basic point for all of us?
It's nice that you have an availability of races so close to you. There's nothing in Humboldt County. There are really only 3 of us who do trail running events, although a number of people run in the Arcata Community Forest. The health club where my friend works put on a short rail run a few weeks ago, but it was the same weekend as Kate's 100-miler. That was the first organized trail run that I know of around here. Other than that, we have to drive 4 hours or more to participate in events. Maybe one of these days we'll find a nice spot where we can try and put on another organized event.
ReplyDeleteHi Dan,
ReplyDeleteYeah Gilly said they'd do a few training runs prior to the race. Gilly and a couple others are running the Angeles Crest 100 this weekend, so they have been focused on that. I was going to do 18-20 miler at Willowdale tomorrow if you are interested? Pace wise my goal is "The slower the better", as I ran about 5 on the trails earlier this week and 9 min. per mile seemed a tad much. I am flexible on start time if you are interested. Let me know, as of now I have no company.
Leslie
ReplyDeleteThat's funny, I thought you west coast runners had all the trail races. It's getting good here. New races are showing up every year.