Mt Washington Race Day!

Well I did it, I made it up Mt Washington! I made it on foot power alone. I made it without stopping. I made it without crawling. But unfortunately I did not make it running the whole way. Yes, I did have to walk at times because my legs got fatigued but I survived.

My goal was to finish around 1 hour 30 minutes, and although I did not make that time I came in at a respectable 1:40:43. The winner was done in just over 1:00 and the cutoff time was 3:02; about 1,000 people started, 859 finished and I placed 337… since it was the US Mountain Running Championship race with an elite group of mountain runners from around the country I think I did well. So here’s how the day started out…

I was up at 6am and ate my usual pre-race breakfast consisting of a banana and grapefruit with whole wheat toast and jam (would have preferred a whole grain bagel). By 7:30am I was like a caged lion in the hotel room while my family got ready. I wasn't really nervous but I was very anxious to get going and just pacing the room. I had checked in for the race the night before so all I needed to do was show up at the starting line, but I still just wanted to get there. My daughter Erica started singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight and I couldn’t get it out of my head so I went off to the race singing it in that high voice that the song is recorded in (though not nearly as well). My family dropped me off at the starting area and headed off to the Cog Railroad to meet me at the top.

I called the Mt Washington Autoroad office to get a report on the summit, and it was expected to be about 44 degrees at the summit at race time with 20+ MPH winds and a chance of rain… just as weather.com had predicted a day earlier so I knew I needed some warmth for above the tree line.

The prerace flew by… I stretched, I drank, I took my Gu electrolyte gel, I warmed up, and because I was so anxious I went to the bathroom 3 times and still needed to go again at the starting line! I felt ready though. I was unsure about wearing my long sleeved shirt under my sleeveless race jersey because it was about 65 degrees at the base and I was quite warm in it after doing my warm up. I stuck with it though because I knew above the tree line with the wind and lower temps I would be glad.

I spoke to a guy before the start who had a funky outfit on. He had very long black socks on, long black shorts and for you Tour de France aficionados, he wore the white with red polka dot “King of the Mountains” jersey. He said he wasn’t really the king of this mountain and was going to be happy to come in around 2 hours. Many of us had some pretty “outstanding” outfits to make us recognizable in the crowd.

The starting gun is actually a canon. I knew this but it still scared the tar out of me when it went off! I took off slowly with 1,000 of my closest running buddies. There is literally about a .1 mile slight downhill/flat at the very start and there wasn’t a single downhill or flat place again until we reached the summit 7.5 miles later. The Mount Washington Auto Road turned up as soon we hit the trees and never let up again… not for a second!