Nicole
It’s been about 5 years since I raced the Fall Series, a local running race series consisting of four races, all on trails, with challenges thrown in. I missed the first one this year as it was the day before I had to fly to Kona, and was busy getting ready for the trip. A little bummed I missed the rope climb up a muddy embankment, but there will be next year!
This year they are swapping up the order of the races, so #2 was actually what used to be #1, North Monument Valley Park with a stretch in the creek.
I showed up around 9:30am for race day registration. The race started at 10:30 so I had plenty of time to get in a good warm-up. I wasn’t quite in top shape, but was feeling decent. I’d ridden about 40 miles the day before and then went to a friend’s 40th birthday party.
I got in about 2 miles in the warm-up including a lunge matrix, some dynamic stretching, and some pick-ups/strides. I was thinking I’d just take it pretty conservative, have a semi-strong but fun race, so I lined up towards the back of the middle of the pack.
When the race started I just went into a solid pace. It’s on grass and a slight uphill at first. Then it turns onto the dirt trail and goes up a short but steep hill. At this point my heart rate was already in the 160s, which is about as high as I can get it these days. My legs were feeling OK, so I changed up my plan a bit. I decided to go pretty hard, as I knew I’d be slower in the creek. I was seeing my heart rate in the mid-upper 160s and it was a gradual downhill, so this helped me pick up the pace.
At the Uintah bridge we got in the creek. I decided to not be in a rush, to just get through this. But 0.75mi in a cold creek, with uneven footing, slippery rocks and sand, was not really the recovery in terms of heart rate I was hoping for. I was still up there pretty high and the creek was a slog. We had to exit and re-enter a few additional times. This section seemed to take forever! I was glad to see the final crossing and we made our way out of the creek.
My feet and calves felt like bricks with additional weight from all the sand and gravel I had picked up. But fortunately I seemed to fall into a good pace. But that wasn’t for long, as we soon hit a section where we had to get over some fallen trees, so you were pretty much at the mercy of the person in front of you. We also had to climb up a couple steep embankments on very narrow washout sections (not real trail.) So again, at the mercy of the person in front of you. On one of these climbs had a disturbed bees nest (or some other stinging flying thing.) We we warned by the volunteers and just tried to scramble up this as fast as possible.
I ended up with three stings, two on my right hip and one on my right trap. Other runners had more, and one guy was stung on the eyelid. Ow. I don’t recall the last time I’ve been stung, and didn’t think I was allergic and figured I’d know soon enough! I was good, just with a few stinging welts that hurt for a bit. The welts subsided within a couple hours, but they still itched for a couple days!
After this is was pretty much downhill and about a quarter mile to the finish so I just gave it all I had. We went down one embankment and a gal let me go in front of her. Once I hit the bottom I just ran as hard as I could to the finish line. I think that gal that let me pass her tried to catch me but I just barely held her off. My heart rate hit the low 170s in this final stretch so I was really working!
The talk of the finish line was of course the bee stings, sharing where we had gotten stung and how many times. Over the PA system came a request for benedryl. The faster runners up front were lucky to avoid this!
I was definitely beat after this 3.5mile effort! I dumped piles of sand out of my shoes and then went for an easy 10 minute cool down jog, talked to some friends I hadn’t see in a while, and made the drive home to get in the shower to wash the creek off of me and then take a nap. Next race is November 1, 6.5 miles in Palmer Park, and is never an easy course!
Nicole
