Race Report: TREAD 6 Hour Trail Run Relay

Great event!  Thanks Chico!  And of course DoubleBellyBuster!

The Course

It was a 4.2km loop on some really beautiful trails.  Very hilly... and somewhat diabolically so!  It started with a long gradual uphill, but once you got to the top you never seemed to get to a corresponding downhill.  The downhills that there were mostly were very steep or punctuated with sharp steep uphills.  Pretty tough stuff, my quads are cooked, mostly from going downhill.

My Race

I didn't actually know anyone on my team before I got there, so first off was meeting them!  There were only 3 of us on the team which was originally going to be 4, which meant more laps.  This was OK by me conceptually... but more on that later!

I was the second to run in our team.  At about the 500m mark I found myself behind a lady who was maybe slightly above my comfortable pace - but I decided to stick with it.  It was fantastic, like having my own personal pace bunny (and best of all she was a good trail runner and chose very good lines!  And curves.  If you catch my meaning.)

Lap 1: 20:29 (Garmin - official time TBD)

I had about 50 minutes between laps, which was enough to recover quite substantially.  I ate one gel and drank at least a bottle of Gatorade/eLoad between each, this seemed to work out really well.

Lap 2 was probably the toughest for me... I knew the course a little better but I was just not very comfortable, perhaps trying to still push a bit too fast of a pace.  My Garmin went a little wonky on the distance and I thought I was way off my previous laptime, so I pushed - only to get to the end and find that I was right in the ballpark!

Lap 2: 20:51

Lap 3 the fatigue and stiffness started to show up a bit more.  Hills were harder, and I walked a couple of the really steep ones... once again I thought my time was blown to bits, but it was pretty OK!

Lap 3: 21:16

Lap 4 was probably the one I felt the best on.  I knew the course pretty well by this point, so I knew when to push, when to recover.  Even though it felt good, my time continued to slip... but not too badly!  I also knew at this point that a 5th lap was inevitable, so I tried to keep things pretty reasonable and not blow up.  By now my legs were very tight.

Lap 4:  21:36

The 5th lap felt a bit like a death march... the pain in the legs was just so bad now, all those downhills especially had really added up to some screaming quads!  Knowing it was the last lap helped though, especially for the finishing kick.

Lap 5: 21:46

All in all I'm pretty delighted, my hill training really paid off and I feel really strong on this kind of shorter stuff.  I was very consistent - every lap I was about 20 seconds slower than the one preceding it!  My nutrition plan mostly worked out great - no solid food, just gel and sports drinks (just like I did at Ironman actually!)

Best of all, the people I raced with were awesome!  Our team ended up 4th in our division, out of about 15-20 teams.  Thanks again to DoubleBellyBuster for the invite, it was a great time, nice meeting everyone.

I would also add that despite the difficulty of the course, it's a good event for beginners in trail running.  There's no pre-defined distance, you do what you can at the pace you want (as long as your teammates are on the same page of course!).  Walk up a hill, watch how some of the expert trail runners do it, and soak in the ambiance.

Chico Racing puts on great events, too - food was great, course was well marked, announcers were entertaining, there was even live music - I mean you really couldn't ask for much more!

Race Preview: TREAD 6 Hour Trail Run Relay

6 hours, as many laps of a 4k trail loop as you can, team of up to 4.

Race website

I have never done this race before, nor have I ever been to this facility (Mansfield), so it will all be new!  I don't even really know the people on my team - so no expectations, just out to have fun and do the quickest 3, 4, or maybe 5 laps I can.

5 Peaks Durham Forest: DNS

I had a family emergency so had to leave town last minute and didn't do the race.  Life is like that sometimes.

Changing plans and will try find something new and traily to do in the next few weeks!

Race Preview: 5 Peaks Durham Forest (Enduro)

Race website

This is a trail race through beautiful Durham Forest.  See my revised map from the race site with some notes...

The good news: I know the forest very well... I've biked hours and hours in there.

Click for larger view

The bad news:  I know the forest very well... and I know what we're in for!  They've included a lot of single track, which is pretty hilly stuff... especially in the first 1/3 or so of the race.  I mean really, could they not have skipped "Wall of Pain"? Or "Lunatic Way"???  It's got Lunatic in the friggin' name!  This is going to be a toughie.  And they've increased the distance from 12km to almost 15km, so this will be a pretty big challenge for me with my current mileage.

The goal: finish with a smile on my face.  Keep well within myself for the first 1/2, and hopefully have something left in the second 1/2.  Get some trail racing under my belt before the Moraine Relay.  And smile!

Keeping a Canoe Straight

Went out for a spin in our new canoe, an 18 foot long Jensen, kevlar, crazy fast!

... well at least it would be if someone who knew what they were doing was paddling it.  We were all over the place, had a tough time keeping it straight. 

It wasn't so much that it would turn quickly on us, but rather than no matter which side we paddled on we would pull the same way.  Supposedly the person at the back has the "mechanical advantage", so when they paddle on the left, the canoe should go right and vice versa.  That wasn't happening, either because I'm not strong enough or something with techique.

After looking at a few sites on paddling technique, it became quickly apparent that it's us.

This is from Hemlock Pete's page (used without permission but I'm giving him a plug so hopefully in the spirit of straight paddling everywhere he'll be OK with it!  Visit his page for many more tips!).

We were doing it the INCORRECT way, or at the very least we weren't consistently doing it the CORRECT way.  This means the boat was being pulled in weird directions and the forward thrust alone couldn't overcome it.

Hopefully next time the canoe goes straight as an arrow!

Getting it Back

I had a slow start this year, probably my slowest start in about 5 years.  Most of that was with the late start following an injury at NYC marathon, followed closely by a trip back home. 

Not to mention the extra 10+ pounds I'm carrying around over last year!  Ouch.

Biggest lesson I have learned previously: don't do too much too soon when coming back.  I'm healthy and feeling good, so the temptation is to kill every ride and run, hammer out some big miles.  The increases have to be gradual or I'll end up injured again.

My approach: log lots of miles on the bike, do run training that counts.  Start adding hills/tempos on the runs, but keep my overall mileage conservative, making up the endurance on the bike.  I've had luck with bike readiness carrying over to the running endurance over shorter distances (1/2 marathon and less) and it tends to be less injury-inducing.

Ready for June!

Race Report: Paris to Ancaster 2012

Wow, what a mudfest.

There's always mud at Paris to Ancaster, but this year was absolutely insane.  Every off-road was sloppy mud. The first half is usually pretty fast, not this year!  Lots of running/walking in mud.

Opening kilometers

I started in the 2nd wave again this year, but with much lower expectations than previous years due to an injury that kept me from training for most of the winter.

My conditioning was a problem right from the start.  The race starts on a fast flat rail trail; usually I can find a good group to stick with, but this year I just couldn't hang on to anyone (at least not without risking blowing up in the first 20 minutes!).  It didn't help that every wheel you grabbed sprayed you with a mist of sand and tiny rocks... yikes!

The race then shoots off onto a rocky hilly farm road.  This one was no different than usual, had me panting but keeping pace with those around me.

Then we got to the first off-road.  This one is usually quick singletrack that is a lot of fun - instead it was a muddy slippery mess.  I had to get off my bike after losing rear traction in the mud going uphill, that's never happened in there before!  It was a sign this was going to be an extra tough year.

When we got out onto the gravel road leading to the first highway crossing, I was already feeling pretty cooked... looked down at my watch, 38 minutes in.  A long way to go to be hurting already!

After crossing the highway, you ride in the ditch and then another trail.  The ditch is always pretty dodgy, but the trail is typically pretty good.  Not this year - it was soup.  Everyone around me was walking, my wheel stopped actually turning from the mud build-up (should have carried it, I know better!).  Disaster.  I felt any hope of a decent time fading, my only hope now was that everyone else was having as bad of a day as I was.

There's a long road section which usually on the cross bike is a chance to make up some time, but I was pretty cooked so just tried to stay within myself and remember I had a long way to go before the end.  This leads to another rail trail, which is always a bit messy and this year was no different.

Crash #1

I come up to this short steep downhill with a sharp turn at the bottom.  It's muddy.  There is a guy stopped at the top telling everyone "go ahead of me", but partially blocking the trail.  Grrr.  Then this other guy - I will call him Green Jacket - comes to a dead stop in front of me just as I'm about to go down... I unclip, he then goes, I follow him but I'm not in my pedal to weight the outside on the turn... and I go down.  Damn you Green Jacket!  I pop up relatively unscathed (other than my ego).  The mud that caused the fall probably also softened the blow.

The Middle and Crash #2

Next up is a road section, which at this point were a relief.  This farmer's driveway was covered in loose deep gravel... inexplicably, they were warning people about the "wet asphalt", but not the gravel.

After going through the town at the mid-way point, there was a lady saying "the mud is very slippery, slow down!"  After the false warning about the wet asphalt, I just assumed this was like the rest of the slippery mud and kind of ignored her... aaaaaand ended up on my ass.  Well, more specifically, I ended up with my knees smashing on rocks and both bleeding quite profusely.  I wasn't quite sure how deep I was cut with all of the mud, only that there was a lot of blood... but it seemed to stop and my knees kept bending as I pedalled, so kept going.

From there, I was kind of mailing it in.  Not totally, I still had little spurts now and then when I felt the competitive juices flowing (ie. when I caught back up to Green Jacket!), but mostly I was way off my race pace and intensity.  Green Jacket re-passed me on the rail trail, I tried to get on the wheel of the last guy in his group but just didn't have... it was that kind of day.

The Mud Chutes

Usually these are the story, where the mud really starts - but today they were just more mud on top of the mud we'd already mucked through.  I rode half, walked what I had to, half-rode-half-walked some of it - just kind of a trudge, as most of the day had been.  At this point I was getting my familiar cramping, so it was just survival.

The Final Climb

I cramped up on one of the short hills leading up to the final climb... really bad, had to shuffle up the hill along with a bunch of others in various states of distress.  But once I got going again I felt pretty good!  Then I saw him... Green Jacket!  I had caught him again.  And he was walking!  I rode past him feeling strong again, but then the grade kicked up and I just couldn't turn the pedals.  Popped off my bike and trudged up with the rest of them, with Green Jacket right behind me... with about 150m left I got back on the bike and hammered it like it was the real Paris to Roubaix and I was in the stadium section, if I didn't achieve anything else today I was going to beat Green Jacket!  Crossed the line caked head to toe in mud (except the red splotches of blood on my knees) victorious - I had lost to a few hundred people, but I beat the one guy that had come to matter the most.

Post Mortem

I didn't really learn anything that I didn't already know... if you don't get the training in, you won't be able to keep up!  That's really where my race began and ended - not only would I have been able to ride with some groups and get that advantage, but I'd have likely had less mud to deal with (it gets worse as more guys ride it).  And I'd have been quicker!

I think a lot of people got in more riding time than usual for this race with the early spring, so the field was in better shape than ever (and I was in worse shape).  And the mud may have made the mountain bike the better choice over the cyclocross bike for the first time since I've been doing this race... it could be a bit of a debate, but I was passed a lot my good MTB guys in the mud, and I'm not sure I made up enough in the other sections to overcome it.

2006 3:54:44 (970/1096)

2007 2:56:21 (632/1136)

2008 2:48:07 (513/1064)

2009 2:50:34 (429/1202)

2010 2:36:12 (463/1272)

2011 2:29:32 (316/1188)
2012 3:01:47 (597/1275) (provisional results, could change)

Big drop in the standings from last year, still top 50% but I can't be happy with that.  Next year I will be back, in shape and ready to kill it.