A thunderstorm rolled through Central Oregon the night before, thus when I woke up the sky was overcast and the ground was damp. Consequently, perfect conditions for trail racing! After putting on my race gear and doing some final stretches, I jogged 1.3 miles down to the starting line in front of the three smoke stacks in the Old Mill District. Getting to the starting are approximately 20 minutes before the race, I met up with my support crew (my Uncle George, Aunt Iris, Dad, and family friend Bill), did some final stretches, changed into my Brooks Cascadia 4 trail running shoes, and then headed to stakeout a good position on the starting line. Recognizing the limitations of caused by my left hamstring and the world-class competition, I did not venture too close the front of the starting line and instead stayed about 5 yards off of the front.
At exactly 9:00 am they fired off a cannon--which was a big bang and a little bit surprising considering last year they just blew a whistle--right near the front of the line to get the race started. Last year the course was only 12.8 miles because the Forest Service closed off part of the course. As a result, this year we ran the full course which was almost a mile longer; that is 13.7 miles. I registered this exact mileage on my Garmin along with other runners, so it was not a matter of running the course efficiently, it’s just a 21k course and some. The frustrating part was that all mile markers on the course seem to all be a little bit shorter than a mile a part. So when we past mile marker 13, my watch was showing 12.6 and since the course was longer than 13.1, instead of a tenth of a mile to go, there was 1.1 miles left. According to Xterra’s markers, this was over a 14 mile run. However, this did not really throw me off because I had run the last 2.5 miles of the course the previous two days, so I was just wondering how the were going to fit in the extra distance.
In summary, I ran a 1:36:46 (i.e., a pace of 7:04 miles per minute) in perfect weather conditions; that is, cool and very little dust due to the rain. My splits for the race were: 6:35, 7:00, 7:38, 7:08; 6:52, 7:03, 7:07, 7:19, 7:39, 7:32, 6:41, 6:47, 6:55, and 4:25. Overall, my time was 10:34 slower than last year and when factoring in the extra distance, this equals 20 seconds per mile slower. However, considering where I was a few weeks ago, I’m proud of this race and had a fun time, which is what running is all about. My hamstring flared up a few times during the race, but nothing that I could not run through. With that said, following the post-race festivities, I essentially hobbled 1.2 miles back to my Great Uncle’s house on Cumberland due to my hamstring have tightened up considerably. In short, it was tight and sore.
By the way, Max King 3-peated at the Xterra Nationals with a 1:15:57. His time this year was also slower than last year’s 1:06:46 that he ran on a shorter course, but still really impressive. Also, one has to believe Max is saving a little bit for next weekend’s 50k National Championship at Mt Bachelor. Bend is Trail Town USA! On the women’s side, Eugene’s Lauren Fleshman repeated her Xterra National Championship with victory in a time of 1:24:24.
Update: in Sunday’s edition of the Bend Bulletin, they referred to this race as a 22.5k (i.e., the correct distance).
Finally, for my non-running workout, I rode my bike for 4.1 miles and completed my typical routine of 300 sit-ups and 30 push-ups. | 