Half-Assed Runner

Tonight was the fifth and final race in the 2011 Lifetime Trail Series.  Tonight’s run was in Elm Creek Park Reserve near Maple Grove.  Since the course was near my work, I left from there.  Even though I was less than 10 minutes away, I managed to just barely make it to the race on time.

I drove to the park and followed the large Lifetime signs with arrows on them.  This is a nice touch, especially in a spacious park like Elm Creek.  There were two large parking lots near the start of the race…both of which were full.  Runners had started parking off the side of the road and my late arrival was actually a bit of a blessing as I was able to get a spot directly across the road from the registration area.

I got into the registration line at 6:20, only 10 minutes before the start of the race.  I was pre-registered and soon I had my bib.  I was given the choice of a tshirt or a hat.  The hats were nice (and very popular), but I went with the dark shirt as I wanted it to match the light one I got at the last trail run.

I stashed the shirt and all non-essentials in my car and went for a quick pre-race jog.  The weather was a pretty chilly 54 and since sunset was set for about 7:10 it’s going to be quite a bit colder before I’m done running (the temps dipped to 48 degrees at the end of the run).  I wore shorts and a long sleeved tech shirt.  I was debating whether or not to throw on a light jacket.  I decided to skip the jacket, which turned out to be a good idea as I was drenched in sweat by the end of the run.

We lined up for the start of the race.  The race director advised us about some of the course details.  I had checked out the course on Monday so I knew that we would be mostly on cross country trails with a .75 mile portion on a paved trail.  The hills were much more mild than the beasts on the Carver run.  They were mostly rolling hills and not too steep.  Most of the trails contain a very narrow single track bike trail of packed dirt.  To take advantage of the single track, runners would need to run single file and run on a tightrope for a lot of the trail as the tracks were only about six inches wide over much of the trail.  Oh, and one more advantage compared to the Carver trail: no horse shit.

The race director advised that the trail had been measured at 5.2 miles.  The trail I mapped out on Monday was over 6 miles (including some of my wrong turns).  They had obviously trimmed the 5.75 mile loop from last year’s race.

The horn sounded and we were off.  As usual, I had positioned myself in the back 20% of the field.  The initial portion of the run was mostly downhill and I found myself unable to hit my pace, so I started passing runners.  I ended up passing more runners than usual and by the .5 mile mark Kinetic announced a pace of 9:04.  That’s fast for me on a paved course, it was much faster than I’m used to running on a trail (the trail usually adds 1.5 – 2 minutes to my average pace).  Still, my legs felt great, the weather was perfect, and I knew that there were no monster hills ahead of me, so I kept up the pace.  I was a little worried about burning out, but my goals for this race were simply to finish and to avoid the tons of walk breaks I used at Carver.

I had switched back to Kinetic for this race as I’ve been pretty unimpressed with Runmeter’s GPS accuracy lately.  Kinetic measured the miles short, it would announce a mile marker shortly before the mile marker would appear on the course.  This is exactly the opposite of Runmeter’s behavior.  On mile 5 though, the mile marker showed up before Kinetic announced it.  Kinetic measured the 5.2 mile course at 5.23 miles, so I’m still impressed by it’s GPS accuracy.

Mother Nature reached out and reminded us that this was indeed a trail race:  a runner ahead of me tripped and fell on the trail.  He was on his feet quickly and uninjured thankfully. 

At the 1.6 mile mark, I took my first walk break near the top of a hill.  I had been attacking the hills, but this sucker was the last of three successive hills and I needed a breather.  This also gave me the opportunity to fall behind a group that I had been pacing.  They were too fast for me on the flats, but I would end up passing them going up or down hills.  I didn’t want to keep "rubberbanding" with them.  I took a quick breather and started running again.

At this point I was alone.  I decided to kick my pace down a notch.  I was about 2 miles in and still running around 9:30.  I dropped down to a pace above 10 minutes and continued on.  Of course, this meant that I ended up getting passed by a dozen or more runners over the last 3 miles, but I was cool with that.  I would occasionally pace behind some of these runners and that kept my legs pumping.  5 miles is still a long run for me.  The weather and the (albeit passing) familiarity with the course meant that I was never super tired, but I did take a few strategic walk breaks, but kept them all to around 10 seconds.  I only took 2 of them on hills.

Around the 3 mile point we started the paved trail portion of the run.  This is where most of the runners passed me.  For whatever reason, it seemed like I actually slowed down on this part of the course.  My feet went slightly numb.  This has happened to me before and, as usual, it cleared up within a half mile.  We ran over a long wooden bridge and past the disc golf course.  Near the end of the trail we hit the only water stop.  I grabbed a cup of water and walked through the stop.  A number of the runners ahead of me did the same, so when I started running again I was in a small pack of runners.  I stuck with them for the rest of the race.

I made one attempt to race ahead of the pack.  Just before the 5 mile mark, I decided to increase my pace and see if I couldn’t get ahead of the dozen runners in the pack.  My idea seemed brilliant…until I hit one of the last hills.  I had to take an embarrassing walk break to catch my breath.  Nothing like racing past a group of people only to have them pass me as I walked with my head down, wheezing, at the top of a hill.

The sun had just set prior to the end of the race.  There were some pretty dark, tree covered patches on the last mile of the race.  There were a few bits (including the paved trail) that were lit.  I assume that these lights are there for the cross country skiers.  The dark spots were manageable, but I did keep a heightened eye out for anything that I might trip over.

There was one more hill right before the finish line.  I looked up and saw 53 minutes on the clock.  I stopped Kinetic and saw that I had run 5.23 miles in 53:18.  I was pretty happy with the 10:12 pace even though I had toyed with trying to trim that to under 10 minutes.  I had a shot at doing that, but my humiliating hill walk ended that pipe dream.  Oh well, I had a much better run than I did at Carver.

Lifetime has a ton of post-race food available.  I grabbed a slice of pizza, some water, and an energy bar.  As I was a sweaty beast and the temps were now in the 40’s, I finished my pizza and took off.

I really liked this course and really like the Lifetime Trail Series.  Next year I hope to hit all five of the runs and improve on my performances from this year.  I am definitely going to do a LOT more hill work.  I have two more trail races left this year (Autumn Woods Classic and Timberdash) but they are both 5Ks and will not be as challenging as the Lifetime courses.  I’m also getting better at long runs.  5 miles now feels to me like 5K felt mid-summer: challenging, but very "doable".