Half-Assed Runner

Sisu is a Finnish term loosely translated into English as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. However, the word is widely considered to lack a proper translation into any language. Sisu has been described as being integral to understanding Finnish culture. The literal meaning is equivalent in English to “having guts”, and the word derives from sisus, which means something inner or interior. However sisu is defined by a long-term element in it; it is not momentary courage, but the ability to sustain an action against the odds. Deciding on a course of action and then sticking to that decision against repeated failures is sisu.

– Wikipedia

I signed up for this race quite a while ago.  I’m not sure what drew me to the race: the setting (Wirth Park), the fact that it was a trail race (at a time when I had not run any trail races), or maybe that it was taking place on a unique date (9/10/11).  When I signed up for it, I did not have any races scheduled around it.  Fast forward a couple of months, and this race turns out to be the 3rd race within 5 days.  I ran the Red Rooster 5 mile race on Monday, the Lifetime Trail Series Carver Park 5 mile trail run on Wednesday, and was now ending my busiest race week with this run, described as “A wooded and challenging 5 kilometer (3.1 mile) course.”

Vendors

After getting my ass handed to me on the Carver Park trail run, the thought of tackling another trail run was far from enticing.  I seriously contemplated skipping this race, but it was a nice day and I had already paid to run, so I headed over to Wirth Park to pound this sucker out.

Theodore Wirth Park

The website and subsequent email notice warned about parking issues.  It turns out that the big parking lot near the race course is under construction.  It was strongly suggested that runners bike or walk to the park.  I live about 30 miles away, so this was not an option.  Consequently I got the park around 8:30 am, an hour and a half before the 5K began to (hopefully) get a parking spot.  It turned out that the event was allowing people to park on the grass close to the starting area, so parking was not a problem (as long as you didn’t mind a little “off road” action).

Parking

After parking I walked to the registration area.  We had been mailed postcards with a bar code on it that the volunteer would scan.  The scanners were not cooperating, but even so, registration was quick and painless.  I scored my swag bag (pretty cool stuff) and t shirt.  I walked back to my car, stowed my gear, and pinned on my bib.  Now I just had to kill 1.25 hours.  Luckily, walking around Wirth park on a beautiful morning is a great way to kill time.

Wirth Park

I eventually wandered to the starting area.  There was a lot of stuff going on.  There was a nice collection of vendors as well as a number of races already taking place.  There was a half marathon and “Nordic Walk” already in progress.  I was running the 5K, which would share a 10 am starting time with a 13.1K race.  Yes, I typed that correctly.  I’m not even sure what to call that race?  A half-marathon poorly converted to kilometers?

Start

As the start time approached, I took a 5 minute jog to get warmed up on the trails near the start of the race.  There were definitely going to be some hilly areas on this run.  I followed the runners with the red 5K bibs to the starting area.

Start

The starting area is the only real complaint I have with this race.  The race started on a paved trail about 6 feet wide.  Between the 13.1K and 5K, there were about 250 runners crammed onto the trail.  A lot of them (myself included) were standing outside of the paved trail.  Once the race began, the flow of runners had to squeeze together to get everyone on the trail and moving.  Needless to say, it was a slow start.  I positioned myself in my usual back 20% position and did not start actually running for a good 2 minutes after the race started.  This brief jogging period came to an abrupt end when the course turned left off of the paved trail and onto a dirt trail.  The trail went up a hilly area right away.  Everyone started walking again.  It was impossible to pass anyone.  Once the trail widened out a bit, I started passing as many people as possible.  I generally don’t try to run fast up hills, but in this case it was the easiest place to pass people, so I powered up the early hills just to pass runners and try to create some space.

Even this strategy was flawed.  Once we hit the single track trails, it became impossible to pass once again.  The trails were very narrow (as single tracks are wont to be) and passing would mean running though waist high foliage.  There was also a beautiful single track area that wound up a large hill.  Everyone was walking at this point.  Not because the hill was super steep, but because all of the runners were clumped together on the trail and the trail was right on the edge of the steep hillside.  Trying to pass would most likely result in a nice tumble down the hill.

This was definitely not a run to PR on.  While I was not happy to be crunched together single-file walking, I did welcome the involuntary walking breaks.  I did have a runner try to pass me at one point.  A younger runner (I would guess around 12) tried to pass me on my left.  The combination of no room to pass plus him being exactly tall enough that when he fell trying to do so that he ran into my elbow made for an ugly scene.  I helped him up, which meant stopping and subsequently stopping everyone behind us.  I felt bad for the kid, but could not understand how the hell he thought there was room to pass.

Other than the extreme congestion, there were plenty of cool parts of the run.  This was very much a trail race.  There were woods, streams, mud, roots, rocks, fields, and hills galore.  There was even a point where you ran through a muddy area and then had to duck through a hole cut out of a metal fence. I didn’t realize there was a choice of bypassing this (I saw the sign but did not understand it):

At one point on the course, the path diverged with two signs pointing to “ick” and “no ick”. “Ick” was through a sinking muddy sludge pool, and “no ick” involved ducking and running through the bramble and log debris to the right of the mud; the choice was yours.

Eventually we hit an open field area on the backside of a school campus.  At that point the runners could finally spread out and start passing other.  I kicked my pace up a notch here so that I could get ahead of as many runners as possible before hitting the trails again.

After this point, the trails were wide enough to accommodate the runners.  There were a bunch of small to medium hills, with a couple of larger hills.  I ran most of the hills, but did walk a couple of them.  I ran the biggest of the bunch, but actually ended up walking a bit of the downhill because I was so winded and the downhill portion was pretty winding and steep.

Second Half Hill

Runmeter must have been having GPS problems, because it nearly a half mile off of the actual distance.  It measured the 5K course at 2.78 miles.  This also meant that it was telling me that I was running 13+ minute miles.  I was running slow, but not that slow.

There was one point where the 13.1K runners and the 5K runners split.  This was confusing and a number of the 13.1 runners went the wrong way.  The volunteers did manage to get them turned around, but they did not look happy about the wrong turn.

The water stop came pretty late in the run (around the 2.8 mile mark) and there were cups of water and “blue stuff”.  I grabbed a cup of the blue stuff.

The final bit of the run was on paved trails.  I was pretty wiped out and knew that my time was going to be well north of 30 minutes so I didn’t try to kick it down on the last stretch.  Plus with Runmeter so off on the distance, I really wasn’t sure how much further I had to run.  One dude tried to pass me at the end but my inner asshole was stronger than his and I sprinted to finish before him.

I had no idea what my finish time was.  When I crossed the finish line, I was too sweaty for my iPhone.  I wasn’t able to stop the timer on Runmeter.  There was a digital clock, but it was still showing the time for the half marathoners.  I know I ran the race slowly, but I was pretty sure that the 1.5 hours on the clock was not correct.

Finish Area - Clock was for 1/2 Mary

All in all, this was a tough, but pretty fun run.  I felt a lot better about my performance than I did at the Carver trail race.  I’m still a long ways from being a trail runner.  I did end up in the top 50% of runners even with my 33 minute run.  That’s pretty good for me, though I can’t help but think I could have done much better if I would have been able to pass other runners in the first half of the race.

There was plenty of after race food and drink.  In the swag bag we received a wooden nickel which you could redeem for a beer.  I grabbed a banana and drank a lot of water (it was in the mid 80s and very humid by the end of the run).

Swag

The only problem I had was when I was driving out of the makeshift parking lot.  Some late arriving car drove in while I was trying to get out.  I had no choice but to take a right and let him in.  I drove down the between the rows of cars, but they were parked all the way to the end, so I would have had to reverse all the way back to get back to the exit.  Instead I drove to the end of the rows and onto the street.  Unfortunately this meant dropping over a curb.  I cursed as I heard the bottom of my car scrape on the curb.  I drove home and found no damage.

I found the Finn Sisu trail race to be challenging, yet fun and beautiful.  The race was very well run and there were plenty of volunteers.  I would suggest starting the run on a street for the first .25 mile at least to allow runners to spread out and hit their pace before hitting the (very narrow) trails.  If you’re running this race I would suggest starting further up than normal and starting out faster than normal to get some space.

Wooden Nickel

T Shirt - Front

T Shirt - Back

Route