Following another great night of sleep, I woke up and stretched for awhile in order to get my left hamstring ready for another race. This one, the Big Foot 10k which is Bend’s longest running 10k and benefits the high school cross country teams of Central Oregon. Also, this is first time that I have run two races on the same weekend. Of course, when I registered for the Xterra Nationals and the Big Foot 10k, I had no idea that I would be running them while recovering from a pulled hamstring.
When I headed out from my Great Uncle’s house on Cumberland, the overcast sky was drizzling rain. After I jogged 1.05 miles over to the Old Mill District, the finish line, in order to catch the shuttle up to the starting line at the Seventh Mountain Resort, it was pouring. As a result, I huddled up with my father, aunt, and a few other runners under a pine tree next to a gravel parking lot waiting for the shuttle to arrive. After a long 15 minutes, the shuttle came, but the number of runners waiting for a ride was greater than the capacity of the shuttle. Since I figured it was either waiting in the rain at the starting line or at the gravel parking lot next to the finish line, I decided to wait for the shuttle to come back down.
Twenty minutes later the shuttle came back and along with a few other runners, I was on my way to the starting line. Among these few other runners was Max King--the Xterra Nationals Champion--and Fujio Miyachi--a trail runner from Japan that Max is hosting. Consequently, it was neat to talk to Max for a few minutes about the Baltimore Marathon that he’ll be running on October 16th. Since I have run this marathon three times, it will be interesting to see how he does.
Approximately 15 minutes before the race started, the shuttle dropped us off at the Seventh Mountain Resort and I immediately took cover in an enclosed tent in order to change out of my outer gear before heading up to the starting line. Following a teacher from La Pine, we took a shortcut over a muddy trail which got us to the starting line with two minutes to spare; that is, just enough time to drop off my gear bag and to find a satellite on my Gamin.
At exactly 9:00 am the race started and a pack of over 200 runners was off. I started in the middle of this pack and it took me a good mile to work out the stiffness in my left hamstring. During the initial mile, a number of runners cruised on past me. However, after I was able to run my way through the stiffness and a few moments of soreness, I was able to get into a pretty good stride. As a result, I was able to run a 36:44 (i.e., an average pace of 5:54 minutes per mile) with the following splits: 5:55, 6:08, 5:42, 5:55, 5:52, 5:47, and 1:23. This time was a good four minutes behind Max’s winning time; however, I was happy to finally get in some relatively fast miles in my Adidas Manas (the first time I have worn these racing flats since the Deseret News Marathon).
After eating some breakfast (i.e., you have to love the post-race snacks) and talking to a few of the other runners as the rain continued, I gingerly jogged the 1.05 miles back to Cumberland. I sent the afternoon resting, icing, and recovering as the weather cleared up outside. In the evening, I went for a jog to the Bend Library, then to my Aunt and Uncle’s place on Hawthorne, and then around the shopping plaza at the Old Mill District before calling it a day and heading back to Cumberland. In total, I was able to get in 8.1 miles at an extremely slow jog; that is, my legs just felt completely exhausted.
To finish off the weekend, I was able to complete 300 sit-ups and 30 push-ups for my non running workout. | 