One Down, Two to Go!

This will be a long post... a lot has transpired in the the past 24 hours since my last posting. I think someone was trying to send me a message not to run today... EVERYTHING went wrong leading up to the start.

I got a late start last night from home which meant I was not going to even arrive at my motel until 11:30pm. On the way I let my GPS talk me into taking the Taconic Parkway north to save time instead of my usual choice of the NY State Thruway (I-87) and while on a deserted section I got nailed in a speed trap allegedly doing 70 in a 55 mph zone. I tried honesty by telling the officer that I was not paying attention and realized I was going too fast just before he shot me. I also made sure he saw my Red Cross volunteer ID and Boy Scout membership card as I was getting out my license. As I was searching for my registration he asked me where I was going and I told him about the race and money I was raising for my two causes. I learned two things right then: I had no registration (I lost it a few months back and had not replaced it yet) and the officer giving me the ticket was not moved by my honesty or my propensity to volunteerism! I got a speeding ticket after all and he told me he'd cut me a break by not giving me a second ticket for not having my registration in the car. Some start to my trip...

This morning I woke up early, stretched and took a shower. It was then that I realized that I had forgotten to pack my running socks, and my tonic water, and my vitamins, and my magnesium... I think I remembered my brain but I'm not so sure. I had to wear my cotton socks from the day before since nothing was open before the race started at 9am... a great recipe for blisters!

I checked in at the race and found out that they had no shuttle coming back down from the top of the mountain and we all have to get back down on our own... oh yea, I also found out that the race was not 4.6 miles, but instead 5.7 miles! On any other day that wouldn't have even made me flinch, but with my calf problems it made a huge difference.

Warming up I mixed many short .25 to .5 mile runs with a lot of stretching and kneading of my lower legs, there was a sore spot deep in the outside of my right soleus that had been trying to work out sincec the night before and it was still there. I just hoped it would hold out for the race and decided that I woudl start very slow and see how things went and if I lasted 3 or 4 miles then I'd start turning up the heat a bit to test my legs out.

The gun went off at 9am sharp and I ran a very easy 8:40 pace for the first mile which is just a lazy hill. Lots of people were going out fast and I got passed left and right and it was hard to hang back, very hard. The second mile had some of the largest elevation gain and I slowed my pace to about 10:00 and was breathing extremely comfortably. At about 2.5 miles all those rabbits who passed me in mile 1 started coming back to me after burning out on the first hill. From that point on, not a single person passed me and stayed ahead of me the rest of the way. I continued to run easily through mile marker 4 and with 1.7 miles to go I felt good and relaxed so I started to speed up and passed more people. The last mile to the summit I started breathing hard and I pushed and 4 guys grouped up and pushed each other to the end. Two of us dropped the others and we see-sawed to the finish with me edging him out at the finish by a nose. It turned out that we were both in the same 40-44 division so that made the difference beween me finishing 5th place instead of 6th place in my division. I finished in a time of 53:16 for the 5.7 miles and 1,600 feet of climb. Not bad but I had a LOT left at the end since I really hadn't pushed myself at the start.

I was so glad that my leg held out but I was not looking forward to running another 5.7 miles back down the hill on pavement. One of the runners told me that if I went down the hiking trail instead it would only be about 1 mile straight down the mountain and no more than 30 minutes. It didn't take any more convincing and I headed down the trail... only to find out that it was very rocky, and for the most part a hike down the middle of a stream. After the rain the day before the water was taking the path of least resistance down the trail so by the time I got to the bottom my shoes were filled with mud and water and those day-old cotton socks had left some nice blisters on my feet :-(

All in all, the race turned out good despite the many mental lapses I had leading up to it. I was in the shape I had intended to be in... the training runs up Bear Mountain and Sleeping Giant as well as the long boring runs on my treadmill were paying off! I was surprised, though I noticed that many, many people were looking at my shirt and reading it, no one asked me about it.

Next up... 10,400 foot Bonanza Peak in Nevada next weekend...