So, I am so very far behind in my blogging, as I have not had computer access for a while as my computer broke, and I never was able to blog when at school, or on vacation until now. Anyhow, I will get caught up with everything as soon as possible, but until then I will start with the beginning of this year. I found out about this race on the 29th of December, and I saw that there had been good competition the previous year (Iain Hunter was third and got beat by 1:25 by the winner), and the race was close by in an area I was familiar with. So, I figured I would try to get a comp into the race. I called up the race director, and he agreed to give me half price on the entry. Normally I wouldn't run a race unless I got a full comp, but I felt like I needed to get in a race, so I agreed to the half price deal. I ran from the in-laws house to the race (about 6 miles) and then warmed up a little more after I got there. Temps were a little colder than I am used to but not bad, however it was raining, and it was a little windy, so the ground was very wet and there were puddles scattered throughout the race course along with wet leaves and mud on occasion. The race started, and I shot out to the front. The competition I was hoping for did not show up, and I was all alone for the entire race. My closest competition was a woman who finished 1:56 behind me (very impressive time for a woman, but I was alone nonetheless). The race starts on the track at Los Gatos High School, and then runs uphill for the majority of the first half on a fairly wide dirt/gravel trail (there is some pavement near the turn-around). There are two monster uphills in the first half that are so steep I would not be surprised if I was only hitting 7:00 pace going up them (I really have no idea how fast or slow I was going on these hills, but nothing would surprise me). The second of the two big hills is paved, but it is long and ends at the turn-around on top of the dam a little past the halfway point of the race. After the turn-around you run back downhill, and it is so steep that your biggest concern becomes not hurting yourself, and you end up braking more than running down the hill (honestly these hills were that steep. Running down them hurt). At the end of the race you come back onto the track and run an additional 350m to the finish From the beginning of the race I tried to hit a pace that was hard but comfortable as I was running alone, and I made it to the mile mark in 5:07, with the first 650m on the track, followed by pavement and then the trail, with rolling on the pavement, and a slight uphill on the trail. There were no mile markers after the first, but there are markers every half mile on the trail, and I caught one split before I hit the first big uphill (2:44 all of it unpaved and slightly uphill). I didn't catch any more splits the rest of the way because the turn-around is past the halfway mark, so I had nothing to base time on, and I failed to catch the markers on the trail on the way back down. I accidentally ran past the turn-around because there was nothing marking it, and the guy that was manning the aid station didn't tell me anything until after I had passed the turn and had slowed down trying to figure out where it was supposed to be. Just after running down the first big hill I also stepped on a decent sized rock, and it got stuck in the heel of my shoe. I slowed down trying to get it out, and I eventually stopped to try and pry it out. However, the rock was stuck pretty good, so I started running again and I left it in my shoe (it kind of hurt because it was digging into my heel through the bottom of my shoe, but otherwise it wasn't too bad). I didn't really push the pace much during the second half of the race, due to the downhill, the rain, wind, mud, the rock in my shoe, and not having much motivation as nobody was close to me, but I still made an attempt to push the pace the last mile or so. I came in to finish in 26:35, with the first place woman finishing in 28:31. The second place man was maybe 30 seconds to a minute behind her. I was pleased with the time given the conditions, as last year in good weather, with good competition the winner only ran 30 seconds faster. I figure that that the missed turn and the rock in my shoe cost me about 10 seconds. The wind cost me maybe 5-10 seconds, and the rain probably cost me about 30 seconds more. If I would have had competition I may have been able to chop another 10-20 seconds off of my time. Overall, I am pleased, and I feel like things are getting on track to make for a good 2011. After the race I was talking to the women's winner, who recently moved to the bay area, and who runs for one of the local track clubs. She wants to try and get an OTQ next year, and is trying to decide between either Boston, or Country Music/Grandma's etc. In her opinion Boston is about 3 minutes slower than the other courses (for an elite woman) simply because at Boston the women have their own start, whereas at the other races the men and women run together. I have always assumed that women have an advantage by being able to run with men, but I had never heard anyone put a number on it, so I would be interested in hearing what others think.
| 