Tim, Me, and Yi.
Another great trail race I joined this weekend.
The race was actually located in Skyline Ridge Open Space Reserve
I was kind of worry about the weather. By far, it was totally unpredictable.
Two days before the race, we were still have a lot of rain, and it was almost June!!
Not to mention the temperature was around 40F at night. It seemed like we have 100 days in Feb this year.
Fortunately, the cloud went away on Saturday, and we had a no cloud clear sky Sunday.
In order to get a 10% off group discount, we invited our old friend, Tim,, to join us. Tim usually focused on road running, he liked to run marathon on the road. It's good he decided to join us this time for some trail running, it did help on his training as well.
More than 200 people joined this race, it was a sold out race. The trail running did getting more and more popular. I was really glad to see that.
people were checking in.
8:20am, people started to gather around. The route was a little bit different from before.
it had 9 miles route, and a 5 miles route. For people who ran 5 miles, they would start at
the other direction, for the rest of the people, they would start at the 9 miles route first.
Then continue the 5 miles loop, if you were running half/full marathon. Or came back to starting point if you were running 9 miles race.
everyone was gathering
At 8:30am, the race started, the trick of trail running was, if you wanna run fast, you had to get ahead of the crowded people before the group entering the trail. Because usually the trail was single track and there was limited space to pass the person in front of you, not to mention to adjust your own pace with some laggers ahead. Well, unless it happened to be a hot girl, it was another story.
Tim said, "hey man, it's half marathon, we should run slower in the beginning".
My experience was, if you ran slower, it would be difficult to catch up, somehow your mind and strength would wear out, especially your mind would start to tell you to slow down or even to walk.
So I just keep my pace steady and stayed close to the person in front of me. Right after we entered the trail,
it was so narrow and the group was forced to become single entry mode, and when we hit the first hill, the traffic started to jam. Tim started to walk right away, but I felt I could still breath smoothly, I had to leave him behind.
What I liked about this trail was, it was not terribly steep, and all the hills were runnable to me.
It was also a perfect weather for a race, a lot of sunshine, but cold wind, low temperature. All the good factors added some points to this race and made it very enjoyable. At some point I almost forgot I was in a race.
Because the two routes are all go-and-return, it was not easy to get lost and you could always see a lot of people on the trail. Personally, I liked this arrangement better than
a loop route. At least, I had a chance to see people's face, not just their butts.
people I met on my way back.
The first aid station was also the returning point, this was the only place I saw Yi, then he was out of my sight again. He was running 9 miles only, but I still had another hill to climb. I had to control my pace. I took a breath here and saw more people coming behind me, okay, pressure on..
got to take off again.
I started to feel tired on my way back, it seemed the GU hadn't taken effect, this was the critical moment for me, my brain started to tell me to stop, take a break. In fact, this was not true, I could still run, just I needed to hang on a little bit longer. Then, out of nowhere, I could feel the energy to keep on running again. I called it GU magic.
It took me about 1:23:47 to finish the first loop. the second loop was even steeper. Now I already got used to the 150/min heart beat and switched to another gear. Thanks to the cold weather, the last 4.8 miles was almost under the sun. The view was fabulous, single track climb into the forest, down to a lake side. After entering a small tunnel, it was another open space called: Russian Ridge.
The trail became wider here, but a little bit rocky. With some beautiful wild flowers on the side
, rolling green hill, and blue sky. I couldn't ask for more in this race. The return point was around 2/3 of the hill, to tell the truth, I was relief when I saw the turn around sign. If it was on the hill top, I would have started to walk. I met Tim on my way down the hill. He was still smiling.....haha..
good spirit.
on my way down.
Down hill was not all that easy, I used a lot of energy to break and my legs started to shake.
A little cramping on my right calf forced me to slow down, and this costed me a lot.
I was passed by 3-4 people. And finally, i saw the parking lot, the last down hill, I just let the gravity took me to the finish line.
Final time: 2:15:57 . Number 5 in my age group.
me running to the finish line.
The trail was located in Sky Ridge Open Space Reserve. I definitely will come back here to run again.
--
Sent from my mobile device
