Old Man Still running

Quick report.  This is my third running of Cascade Crest 100 in the Cascades of Washington, where I grew up skiing nearby.  The weather was cooler this year, nice.  The race begins with three miles of dirt road and then a tough climb.  I stayed up front but toward the end of the massive climb let dozens of younger runners go on ahead.  They were still pushing hard and my thoughts were, "Let's see if you can do that at mile 60!"  During a dirt road descent about mile 7, I decided to open up the speed, but then wasn't being careful enough and took a bad fall, gashing my forearm and bruising a quad muscle.  That took the wind out of my sails, but I still mostly kept pace with the other runners.  I got bandaged up at the next aid station, but the gashes still bled for several hours.  My leg got worse and soon I had difficulty bending my leg other than normal stride running.  That was concerning but I hoped it would settle down and it mostly did.

I kept pace with my 2011 pace, within minutes of it, even up to nine mintues ahead until about mile 80.  So I had a good race going.  My run through the 2.5 mile dark tunnel during the night was slower than usual because my achilles started to burn, so I backed off the normal sub-8:00 pace through there, but I still came into Hyak earliest than ever.

I was most pleased with me charge up the hill to Keechelus Ridge about mile 50.  All the other runners were hiking, but I ran like crazy, shocking them.  That is the value of not burning yourself out on the hills during the first quarter of the race.  I then blasted down the long dirt road to Kachess Lake.   The run through the "trail from hell" went OK, always longer than expected and was my slowest time through it, but still not bad.

Things fell about after that.  My stomach would not cooperate.  My theory is that I left my jacket behind in my drop bag at the aid station because dawn arrived and I got chilled, drawing blood away from the tummy.  At first I was charging up the next hill nicely but soon my stomach shut the running down as I was cold.  For the next several hours I suffered and my pace slowed.  By mile 89 I was 40 minutes behind my 2011 pace, but feeling better.  However, the leg and feet slowed me down the rest of the way.    I was glad to see the finish line arrive.  The last six miles were on the painful side.  

I really enjoyed the run, I'll return.