last weekend i ran in a local 25 km trail race in vernon. the Dirty Feet Kal Park race. There was also a 50 km race that day, but I signed upfor the shorter distance because I wanted to support local, but didn't want to get sucked into running a race style 50 km run two weeks before a race that I'm viewing as a race that I want to push hard at; that race being the Sun Mountain 50 mile race in winthrop, wa.
The race was on Sunday morning, and Thursday I was playing softball with colleagues; some silly interdepartmental bet was on the line, and of course everyone knows I run so even if it's unsaid I feel pressure to run hard. I'm put in outfield because 'you can run for the balls' little do they know my ability to focus and catch the ball seems destroyed by the holes in my brain matter, but whatever. I can run to where the ball is coming, but the ball bounces out of my glove. I get distracted staring at a pretty lady running by the field, and have to sprint extra hard to try and make a catch just to drop the ball. I can still hit a ball, but not far. So I get on base, and I'm just giving her to run the bases as fast as I can, and I feel something go wrong in my hamstring and everything feels tight. Like not super bad, but not right. Later it felt like I couldn't take a full stride extension while running.
Saturday I drove down early in the morning to run in vernon. The plan was to head out onto the High Rim Trail. It was a beautiful day, last week we had snow, and this week we're proper into spring. Hitting 30 degrees, ran without shirt, got some solid tanning (burning) in. It feels like every weekend the last month I'm running up to the snow line. Not a lot here, but there was some heavy patches, and of course the snow spots were the same spots that had heavy downed trees. At one point I was staring at a football sized patch of waist high snow, with about tonnes of downed trees in it, and of course no trail markings to be seen. Took me several attempts of plodding the wrong way to find my way back to a trail. At the end of the climb, before the High Rim Trail start to traverse its way towards kelowna, there's a radio tower, from this radio tower you can see EVERYWHERE, and your voice echoes repeatedly when you scream, its rad.I got in a nice 8 hours of running/bushwacking in for about 50 clicks. I think this trail will be very doable for a nice point to point run at some point this summer, very much looking forward to it. I tried to test out the hamstring, and it felt like it wouldn't be hurting, but didn't feel like I could get full extension of my leg, like not a full kick. Which I guess wasn't so bad because this race was never going to be a race about going all out.
I camped the night before in Kekuli bay. I don't think I can ever get tired of perfectly hot weather in the okanagan.
Race morning rolls around, the 25 k started at 9 am, but I showed up for 6 am to be able to visit and cheer on the 50 k racers at their 7 am start. Start line time; there's faces I recognize, some fast folks, some others that look fast, runners that used to beat me regularly that I now run faster than. I wanted to be able to seed myself near someone that I felt was slower than me that would be trying to run fast, thought that would be able to match my desire to not push hard that day. In a field of 60 runners I started about 15-20 runners back at the start; I do this in an attempt to force myself to start slow. It worked, and thats good (I think). Someone took video of the 25 k race after the second hill, about a km in, there was at least 10 runners in front of me, but the race started with some nice climbing, so I'm just chugging along and passing people, really trying to take it easy. The top three runners at this point were probably already at least 3-4 minutes ahead of me. This was my intent, to start easy.
The race was beautiful. The trails are very reminding of the okanagan; dusty trails with some rocky bits thrown in. Open stretches of beautiful views where the sun beats down on you, and sections of glorious shady reprieve in the mountainside. Some nice climbing, slow steady chuggable stuff, and some fun tricky but not too tricky descents. I don't like to compare myself to other races, but when examining a race retrospectuvely and the same pattern emerges it makes me wonder. I consistently overtake and pass people on the uphills, and lose ground on the downhills.
The race went well(ish) I didn't feel like it went full effort, but was able to put in a nice push. I didn't like that I felt like I couldn't kick fully, maybe that's what hindered my flat speed and my downhill today. But still, I wonder; is downhill running my weakest aspect of running. If so, why? Is it technique? Because I've been told by some folks that I'm a good downhill runner. Or is it in my head? Do I perhaps hold back while running downhill at certain points of a race in the fear that it will burn out my legs for later parts of a race?
I ended up finishing the 25 km course, which had about 1100 metres elev gain in 2 hrs 16 minutes. I'm good with that.
In two weeks I'm running sun mountain 50 mile race. I've checked out previous race results, and seems like a faster course. I've seen pictures, and the environment is quite reminiscent of home. Asthma shouldn't be an issue. And the trails look like they are nice steady climbs, and runnable downhills. So, I feel like the ups work to me, and I will be focusing on downhill and flat running that day (I'm assuming my uphill running will remain decent without thought) looking to maintain a good cadence, keep good turnover on the flats. And for downhills will be focusing on getting the knee higher, more forward lean, more leg turnover (like the road runner) letting gravity do the work to make the downhills faster/easier.
I want to run 50 miles in under 7:30. I will start relatively conservatively, but nowhere near as conservative as in this 25 km race. According to ultrasignup's really horrible bad math ranking system I'm ranked 14th for the race; so I will seed myself around top ten to start the race. And then its giver time. There's 6 aid stations, with the last 4 having drop bags so all that I'll need on me for race time is socks, shoes, shorts, sunscreen and a water bottle!
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