The trail runs in this series are held every other Wednesday and consists of five races. The first four of these will be official 50@50 events - numbers 43, 45, 47 and 49. We'll be missing the last one because we will be, uh, er... 'out of town'. These events will be fun mostly because each course will be of a different distance on different trails, so we'll get to re-visit more of the park. Which is wonderful, truly.
I really had no idea what to expect as we drove up to the top of NW Thurman for the start of the race. Registration for the series is limited to 150 people but there are usually no shows. I wasn't sure how formal the event would be or how many people would show up. As it turns out, the races are chip timed and they had a big official timing clock, a check-in table, water, etc. - all the trappings of a real live event!! Sweet! Surveying the crowd, I noticed that most of the runners looked to be, well, runners. I'm a big guy at 6'4" and packing some extra weight, so I stand out as the most Clydesdale of Clydesdales at most events, especially the smaller ones like this. For those who don't know, 'Clydesdale' is a special category at runners - means we're all big fellas. Anyhoo, seeing all these wimpy-size people never bothers me. I feel good about getting out and participating. And, hell, this was Event 43, remember. I am confident that no one in this crowd, other than Camera Crew, had done 42 events since January prior to showing up at the trail head.
Now, you all know I love Camera Crew very much. But I have to say, she was a little grumpy as we milled around waiting for the start. This was another of those evening races, something we still haven't adjusted to yet. We're 'run in the morning' folks, so evening is all about cooking dinner and winding down. I was still sore from the 10k trail run two days earlier, so wasn't super excited about this one. But Camera Crew was downright pissy. She had to come home from a day of work, then get ready to go out and run. She really didn't want to be there. But we love running trails and so I finally told her 'You know that as soon as this is over, you'll be grinning from ear to ear!' She was.
In fact, I'll post the intro video and the wrap video together. You'll see the difference. And you will laugh. I promise.
Our course for the run looked like this:
For reference, as a general rule any part of the course that runs right to left is predominantly steeply uphill and (of course) left to right is out-of-control downhill. The trail rolls up and down for a lot of it but Wildwood, Alder, Dogwood, and Wild Cherry can be pretty steep in places. In summation, this was a damn tough course, coming in at 5.78 miles.
The race started and we took off up Leif Erikson for about a mile, which was a nice warm up. Once we turned off on Dogwood, it was fun time! The trail went up and up, met up with Wildwood. We took that to Alder then bombed back down to Leif. Now, I have to tell you that up to this point we had been trading off taking the lead. Shortly down Alder, Camera Crew took the front and she just kept going and going and going. She set quite a quick pace and didn't stop til we got all the way down to Leif! I was pushing to keep up, thinking to myself "Wow, she's either still pissed about having to run or feeling really REALLY good!". Fortunately, it was the latter. After the first mile, her endorphin's kicked in, she realized where we were and got all happy! So by the time we got to Alder, she was thoroughly enjoying herself. When I hit Leif, she was waiting for me, smiling.
We headed back down Leif until we hit Dogwood again, did the same climb as the first loop (see map) but instead of cutting off on Wildwood, we kept going to the tippy-top of Dogwood, as it brushes NW 53rd. We cut off Dogwood onto Wild Cherry for the wild drop back down to Leif. This stretch went on much longer than I remembered, but I tell ya, we were bombing down this trail. I'm writing this three days later and my feet, ankles, and knees are still quite sore and achy from the downhill pounding.
(Also, note to self: consider bringing headlamp next time; it's dark in the woods and trail vision was sketchy at times!)
Once we got to Leif, it was about half a mile to the finish at the park gate. At this point, we're both feeling good and excited to be almost done. We were cruising down the road, a gentle downhill. I'm picking up speed cuz, well, I'm fat and running downhill. Camera Crew speeds up and starts to pass me. I keep pace. She speeds up a little more.
Oh, I see now. It's going to be one of those finishes.
Miss Grumpypants is now in a full out sprint, as am I. I thought - briefly - of reaching over to grab her ponytail to get ahead of her but then wisely considered the repercussions. I usually take her in these sprints - longer legs, longer stride. I'm not sure what had gotten into her, but Camera Crew was matching me straight up. Thank god the finish line came when it did because I was running out of gas. And, as it turned out, I shoulda yanked her hair because the official results had her finishing one second ahead of me.
I call BS.
Like I said before, it was so awesome to be running in Forest Park again. It's gorgeous and this trail series is going to be a blast. I'm very excited to have this be a part of my little project.
But next time, Camera Crew - you better wear your hair up.
Maybe I'll just run a little faster.
ReplyDeleteHaha! Sounds like so much fun!!
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