Race Report: Trail Nut Half Marathon - "Today [Was] NOT That Day!"

On May 4th (May the Fourth Be with You), I ran the sixth race in the Mountain Junkies RNUTS trail series.  It takes place every year at Falling Creek Park in Bedford and has an accompanying 10K, in case you'd prefer to run less distance.

On a clear day, you have some beautiful views from the grassy hill portions of the trail, like this one of the Peaks of Otter in the distance.

Today was chilly (56 degrees), overcast and misting, to boot.  So views like this one were not to be had today.

I posted on Facebook in the morning that "If your region needs rain, just let me know about a race in the area and I will come run it."

At least it wasn't pouring rain and 43 degrees, like Montvale.  Still, I waited in my car until about 10 minutes before the race start instead of shivering in my lightweight long-sleeved technical shirt and capris.

The race starts down by the bridge to the Creekside Trail.  Runners don't go over the bridge, but instead begin by going up the grassy hill to the start of the Upper Deer Trail, which has a lot of downhill running.  There was a time cutoff of 2 hours 10 minutes at the end of the first loop (9.3 miles) that I didn't want to miss, so I tried to keep a steady (but manageable) pace while making the most of the downhills.  Downhills have always been my trail running strength.  Experience has taught me not to go out too fast on a downhill beginning only to run out of gas later.

The Upper Deer Trail ends at Piney Ridge, where I walked up the big hill.  Then more downhill/flat until we came out of the woods at the road.  It was a slight uphill on the road to the Beaver Dam/Pond Loop trail.  It was around this point that the fastest 10Kers started coming up behind us and I had to move off the trail a few times to let some of the fasties go by.  The rockiest part of the course is when you come out of the Pond Loop.

Then we crossed the road to continue on the Turkey Hill Trail, which is not terribly hilly and crosses behind the disc golf course to lead to the Sleepy Hollow Trail.  At the end of that, there was a volunteer stationed to direct traffic, as the half marathoners needed to make a 90-degree left turn up the hill (which I walked) to the Bike Park trail.  The 10Kers continued straight.  

A 10K guy came up right behind me as the volunteer was directing us, and we were probably a comical sight as we sort of bumped into each other as we figured out who was going where.

Another comical sight, I'm sure, is the Bike Park portion of the race.  It's a treeless section of the park with with a tightly wound path that contains bumps and obstacles to hone mountain biking skills.  Here's what bikers do with it.

Here's a view of the path from above.  So you can imagine what it's like when you've got a couple dozen runners on it at the same time.  You really can hardly tell who is ahead of who.  People are zigzagging all over the place.  This is probably my least favorite part of the course (aside from being funny to watch) because you're not in the woods and you feel like you're going nowhere.  I suppose actually we are going nowhere... just accumulating some mileage.  At least we weren't in the hot sun today, so that made it a little more bearable.

From the bike park, we headed along the perimeter of the big grassy hill, where I was able to let it go and fly for a short while.  I got some water at the stop just before heading to the section of the race on the Ledge, White Rock, Slick Rock, and Hill-n-dell trails.  I think this is the part with the most elevation change throughout.  

It seemed like I kept alternating walking the longer steep uphills with flying downhill on this portion.  I passed quite a few people in this part.  I didn't know if they were half marathoners or 10Kers because we were all merged again at this point in the race.  

There are some cool things to see in this part of the park, like this huge toppled tree that has been there for years, but I was too focused on my footing to notice today.  The pictures of the park in this blog are from my run there two weeks prior.  I did not carry my cell phone during the race because of the potential for rain and the fact that I wanted to do my best not to miss the cutoff time at the end of the first loop.

Then we made our way along the Race Course trail and onto Fat Albert.  I have got to remember someday to run Fat Albert first on a training run because I think I would really enjoy this trail a lot if I didn't always seem to get to it when I'm very tired.  It doesn't seem to be as rooty as other portions of the park (although except for The Ledge/White Rock/Slick Rock, I don't find the rest of Falling Creek Park to be terribly rooty, either.)  Fat Albert is a lot of gentle ups and downs and I didn't have to walk too much at all, even though I was getting a bit tired.  I passed more people in this section.

After Fat Albert, it was the Ridge Loop and Creekside Trails, and then crossing the Bluebird Path & Disc Golf course to the Lower Deer Trail, which led to the finish line (for 10Kers... it was the end of loop #1 for half marathoners).  I was very happy to see that I had made the cutoff by 25 minutes or so.  I got some more water and ate my Honey Stinger gummies as I walked back up the big grassy hill to the start of the Upper Deer Trail again.

One thing I really liked about this half marathon was that the first loop was significantly longer than the second.  Knowing I had only 4 miles to do was a great help, mentally.  The last 4 miles consisted of Upper Deer, Piney Ridge, Beaver Dam/Pond, Turkey Hill, Sleepy Hollow, and then a RIGHT turn to go over to the Creekside Trail, finishing up on the Lower Deer.  I came into the finish line at 2:29:30, feeling tired, but nothing hurt.  This might be the first race this year where my left hip didn't grumble, I didn't fall, and didn't twist an ankle.

I was especially relieved that nothing hurt because I hadn't run for a week.  Last Saturday, the outside of my left foot was hurting with every step as I ran... enough so that I cut my Saturday run short.  My foot felt like this all week long.  It was a really strange pain - it came and went throughout the day, and I've never had pain like it before.  I wondered if it might be caused by a tendon on the outside of my ankle/foot, because two weeks ago when I ran at Falling Creek, I had about a dozen "ow" moments when that foot twisted in a weird way, with the sole of my foot facing outward and feeling pain in my outer ankle.  So all week long, I rested, iced, stretched, and took Ibuprofen three times a day.  Finally by Friday, my foot was no longer hurting.  I thought about downgrading to the 10K to be on the safe side, but decided to just go for it and try to be careful doing the half.  The weather forecast made it extra tempting to downgrade to the shorter race.  I am really proud of myself for sticking with the plan and running a good race.  You can see my new trail shoes (Hoka Stinsons) are now looking broken in after today!

The post-race food is always really good at Mountain Junkies races, and they have such nice volunteers.  Being one of the later runners to finish this time, I didn't get any chocolate milk.  There were only drips left.  At least in the final race of the series I'll be doing the shorter distance (25K vs. full marathon).  There will be chocolate milk for me at that one!  Ha ha!

I decided to stick around for the awards since they were moving along pretty quickly as I munched on my veggies, hummus dip, banana, and pumpkin bread.  It turned out I won my age group!  I was first out of ONE!  As Woody Allen famously said, "80% of success in life is just showing up."  That was definitely the case today.  Later as I perused the full results, I realized I was also the OLDEST WOMAN in the half marathon at age 54.  The next oldest was 49.  There were only four men older than I.  So I feel really lucky to still be able to run these things.  

My race pace statistics:  First segment:  10:43/M  (79/97), Second segment:  11:25/M (59/97), Third segment:  11:38/M (57/97).  I finished 66/97 overall and 27/53 of the women.  Overall average pace:  11:14/M.

I am pleased that I didn't slow down too much after the first segment of the race (which had a lot of downhills and not too much climbing).  When I look at these results, I can't help thinking way back to my first run at age 29... on a treadmill.  I forced myself to run 10 minutes at a 13-minute mile pace.  I huffed and puffed and counted down until I could hit the STOP button.  I am now nearly twice as old and able to run almost two minutes faster per mile on a hilly TRAIL!

While I can't help wondering what it would be like if I had started running as a teen, it's never too late to get in shape and be better than you are.  There were a LOT of entrants this weekend in the 15-19 and 20-24 women's age groups.  That is highly unusual.  At most races, there's hardly anyone in that bracket.  I wondered if these women are part of an LU running class or something.  Whatever the case, they brought a lot of energy to the event, cheering for each other on the course and at the finish line.  I am glad to see young women running trails.  They have decades ahead of them to continue to improve and then try to slow the inevitable decline (as I'm trying to do right now... I tell my husband I'm trying to stave off "hagdom.")

Here is a link to the full race results (with segment times/pace and everything).  I hope my foot (and the rest of my bod) is happy tomorrow after pushing myself today.  I'd like to up my mileage before the final race on Memorial Day Weekend (Conquer the Cover 25K).  However, the main thing is not to get hurt so that I can accomplish my goal of doing all seven races in the series and then start training for the Steamtown Marathon.

The earband I wear on cool days says this:  "There will come a day when I cannot do this.  Today is not that day."  I intend to keep pushing "that day" as far into the future as I can.  Happy Trails, everyone!