The last race of the season is always a bitter sweet experience. On one hand you are tired and beat up from the long season before it. On the other hand you are excited to race but also looking forward to the rest and recovery following it. I would be lying if I said I was as motivated as any other race to train for this one. But in reality it was a real struggle to stay on track. I was cutting workouts short and skipped three workouts in the weeks proceeding the race. Two of the three skipped workouts were due to an infection in my foot from my last race, otherwise a scouting camping trip prevented the third. Regardless, I was ready to race because I had a lot of fitness built up from my season and I was still confident to do my best on the day.
The River Valley Trail Run Festival offered a 5k, 10k and half marathon. I raced the half marathon in 2017. I finished fifth overall in that race and loved every second of the challenge. I knew I would come back to this race one day. The course this year was very different in route, but not different in challenge. The terrain was very hilly and the footing varied from fire road, grass path, corn fields, rocky, and to rock scramble. It included three river crossings and was as technical of any trail running I have done. In many ways, it reminded me of the varied terrain of the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail. According to my elevation corrected Garmin files from the two versions, in 2016 there was 1,245 feet of climb and this year we climbed 1,676 feet. Below is a comparison of the two courses (2021=red, 2017=blue).
The race start time was 8 AM. I woke at 4 AM and executed a run warm-up around the neighborhood to get the body going. I had my customary pre-race breakfast of an oatmeal mix that I eat every morning. Breakfast by far is my favorite meal of the day! I packed my gear and left at 6 AM to drive 35 minutes to River Valley Ranch. River Valley Ranch is a really special place! It is a faith based camp for kids that is built to look like an old western town. The race starts inside "Fort Roller" which is a square made of the amazing bunk houses and a chow hall. It really takes me back to being a kid and dreaming of summer camp! The atmosphere at the race was amazing and you feel surrounded by God's creation!
Parking for the race was in a grazing field for the horses and sits way below the race venue in elevation. I learned from the previous race to pack all my gear and utilize the gear check at the venue so you don't wear yourself out going up and down that hill (not to mention completely soaking your shoes in the dewy grass!) I arrived before sunrise and was one of the first folks to hike up the hill and find a good place to get staged for the race. I hunkered down and just listened to some tunes while the rest of the racers arrived. This is always one of my favorite parts of racing. I really enjoy watching all the different approaches to getting ready to race. Quite honestly, I prefer to keep to myself and just soak in the atmosphere.
At 7:30, I drank my pre-race nutrition of corn starch, peanut butter powder, beta alanine, caffeine, and almond milk before I began warming up. I am so thankful to Sierra in sharing with me a warm up routine that starts right after I wake up because it always makes the warm-up right before race start so much easier. As I am getting older, I have found that it takes a lot longer to get loose and feel good. Because I already completed a solid warm up a few hours before, I feel fresh and ready with very little warm up just before the race. Thankfully, this was the case because they had organize into our corrals twenty minutes early. I waited until the very last call to enter the corral. They had an organized warm-up which was very entertaining to say the least, sang the Anthem, and most importantly led a prayer.
The start of the race was finally here and I was in the first corral to get started. I toed the line and we prepared to start. As we were waiting for the gun, the gentleman that mapped out the course indicated the first mile or so was suggested by a runner that was standing right next to me. I immediately knew this might be someone with whom I should tag along. Fortunately he was wearing all orange and was easy to keep an eye on all day. The first half mile of the course was straight down hill to the river and I knew we could just let the legs go and try to be in the front pack by the time we reached the first single track of the day.
They counted down and we were off! As expected, the guy who suggested the first part of the course set a fast pace and he clearly knew where he was going so I slotted in behind him. His pace was strong and comfortable for me so I was very satisfied to be with him. To my surprise, only two others really went with us. We were flying down the hill to the first hard left turn into the horse fields and down towards the horse barn. The grass was thick and wet but the footing was good. We had to check our speed as the hill became fairly steep and we were entering another hard right turn to go through the horse barn. We navigated that section cleanly and were off through the barn down the last part of the hill to the river.
We reached the first part of single track which was a rocky section with a fairly technical flow to it. I was holding tight to my guy in orange and could hear another individual running slightly behind me. I was very satisfied to be in second and in the front pack from the beginning. I could tell the pace was slightly high for me but I was feeling good and wanted to see how this would go for another couple of miles. We reached the first switch back and climb for the day and could see that the three of us were way ahead of the rest of the race. I anxiously watched our leader to see how he would treat the up hills and to my relief, he dialed back and just short-step chopped at them. The climbs were short but always punchy and provided no recovery all day. The real recovery was just letting your legs fly downhill to let the heart rate come down.
The first mile clicked away at 7:39 and I knew we were flying over the trails. This pace was pretty unsustainable for a trail race like this but we were descending back down to the river and continued along a single track that followed the river to mile 2. It remained very technical with a ton of rock and jumps to truly keep your flow. We made a right turn and entered our first real climb of the day up a fire road towards the paintball fields. I was pleased at this point as our leader and I had stretched our lead on the rest of the race to the point that we could not see third place or beyond. I felt strong up the entire climb and knew by this point I had found my rhythm.
We reached a sharp left and turned downhill snaking between the paintball barriers and really had to focus as the grade was steepening. This is always the best part of trail running. Your focus must remain high throughout which makes the miles just tick away. Time seems to fly as you are just trying to remain on your feet and glide over the terrain as smoothly as possible. We descended again down to the river and made our way towards our next climb. This climb started at mile 3 and was split between single track at the beginning where we had a few switch backs and then emerged into a corn field. I was very pleased to continue tracking along the leader up the hill and around the cornfield. We turned left back into some single track areas that emerged again next to another corn field as we made our way to the first hydration area just before mile 4.
I elected to carry my own hydration with a light Ultimate Direction vest which held two 500 ml flasks. I had one filled with water and the other with SIS Beta Fuel. I went with this vest over my Salomon Sense Pro 5 due to the potential of the river crossings. The Sense Pro has a padded back and storage area in the back that I thought might carry extra weight if it ended up wet. The Ultimate Direction ended up being fine although it does not fit as snuggly as my Salomon. I stayed pretty disciplined with hydrating and fueling throughout. The duration of this race was just over what I was comfortable with not having fuel. I have learned the aftermath of a race without fueling is not worth the savings in weight.
After mile 4, I started to notice I was slipping behind the leader a bit more and it seemed like he was definitely starting to surge (or I was slowing down). We climbed up a couple of switch backs and emerged onto a gravel road that included a steady decline. I knew I had to close the gap. I surged and clawed my way back towards the leader by the bottom before we turned sharply right into the largest climb of the day. I was winded but happy to be back in touch. This next segment of the course was very similar to the last time I raced here. It featured the most technical rock climb / scramble on the course and it did not disappoint. It included two forks where you could choose your path. Unfortunately, I chose wrong at both forks! Both paths were far slower and confused me more than helped me! At the second fork I literally had to stop and look around as I had lost the course. It was at this point I lost the leader and had a feeling I might not see him again. After the scrambles, we had a straight climb to the highest elevation of the race. We passed mile 5 and also the mile 11 marker which meant we had to do this one more time! I will not deny that I thought about that for a few minutes and realized I had to settle in and keep pushing.
Knowing we reached the highest elevation meant we would have a long descent back down to the second loop of this course. I did my best to negotiate the hill and take a gamble to see if I could make contact again with the leader. I reached my fastest pace of the day at 5:11 on that downhill, it was very exciting! We snaked our way around and back to Fort Roller to start our second loop. As I emerged out of Fort Roller and back into the horse field, I caught a glimpse of the leader whom had already made it to the bottom through the horse barn. He was gone! I let loose and felt the recovery of flying down the grass field and through the barn to our first river crossing.
This crossing was tame as it was a submerged road bed so the footing was perfect and you could leap step across with confidence despite the flow of the water. It was here that I found my shoe selection may not have been the best. I invested in a pair of Salomon Wildcross 2 Goretex trail running shoes. These are fantastic for keeping rain and dew out but I have learned that once water gets into them, it does not get out easily. My feet sweat a ton and I figured this out on my long training runs so I knew this might be a problem in the race. The shoes filled as expected and of course it took for ever to really get the water out. My feet immediately felt like lead getting out of the water and I just kept pounding away hoping they would squirt out eventually. Unfortunately, the next two miles required two more river crossings and they just refilled. We reunited with the previous loop around mile 8.5 and by mile nine, my shoes had finally started to feel normal again. In the past I have actually drilled holes in the soles of my shoes for quicker draining, this might end up being the future for this pair.
At this point of the race, I had not seen the leader at all and third place was still fairly far back as I could see him occasionally when we were on some switchbacks. We also started to overlap with some of the 10k runners whom started around 9 AM. This wasn't a problem at all as most of them were very considerate of faster runners and moving off to the side way before we would pass. I thanked them each time and also benefitted from the words of encouragement from a few of them. I continued to listen for any sign of third place making up time on me as I knew I was starting to fade a bit. I tried not to think negatively and stay focused on the course ahead of me and not behind me. Easier said than done.
After mile 10, I reached the long cinder road where I had made up time on the leader before. This time, I wanted to simply run as confidently as I could yet recover enough for the climb I knew we had remaining up the rock scramble. I made the right hand turn and onto the technical rocky single track. There were far more people racing and spectating the race at this part of the course which was a huge benefit! The cow bells and cheering was awesome and really helped pick my spirits up. I elected to go the opposite ways at both forks and successfully flew through the scramble. As I made the climb to the highest elevation, I caught a glimpse of third place and he was a lot closer than I had imagined. I knew it was time to put the rest on the line!
As soon as I reached the peak of the climb, I knew I had to let it all go down the hill and put whatever pace out there that I could. In the first loop between mile 5 and 6, I averaged a 7:31 pace with a max pace of 5:11. I didn't nearly come close to that in the same segment of mile 11 to 12 where I averaged a 8:12 pace with a max pace of 5:51. However, that is all that I had and at the end of the day it proved to be enough. I kept my perceived hammer down all the way back up the climb to Fort Roller where I rounded the fort and back towards the finish line.
The finish line atmosphere was awesome as so many people were there to cheer the finishers. The cow bells, music, and yelling was fantastic and filled my empty soul up! I crossed the line to my familiarly mispronounced last name in second place overall! I finished in a time of 1:48:30 and within 3:19 of the leader. I met Josh Ferguson at the finish and give a good fist pump and accolades for a job well done! Third place finisher Christopher Sufczynski came in 0:38 behind me and we were all wiped but satisfied with a great race!
Overall, I am obviously very satisfied with my performance at this race. This was an amazing celebration of a season of solid running. I really learned how to suffer on a run but maintain pace to lead me to some of my best performances ever. Compared to the last time I raced here, I beat every possible metric from my four-year younger self! I know at 44 years old, my time is limited in making improvements and getting faster so I am going to continue enjoying being faster than I was yesterday until I can't be any longer. My inspiration to race is still to compete, but every year I gain a new appreciation of what it means to be able to compete. I am blessed to have a healthy body, a family that supports me, an inspirational coach, and a luxury of time to train for such things. Racing continues to be a celebration of all these amazing blessings and to provide glory to God who grants them!
