Blues Cruise 50K Race Report

When I was in college, I took a meteorology course.  Now, I've been a weather geek since kidhood - when my peers were checking out Dr. Seuss, Nancy Drew, and the Little House books from the library, I was checking out every book they had on the weather - so in a lot of ways the class was a bit of a gut course for me, but it was nice to have a real meteorologist confirm some of the things I had long suspected, one of which being that a long-range weather forecast is worth the paper it's written on.  So perhaps it was a bit naive of me to latch on to the extended forecast for race day (sunny, upper 50's - really, perfect) and more naive still to remain optimistic after it started going to pot, where it stayed.  Hey, I'm an optimist - so shoot me!

Fortunately, it only rained at the beginning and end of the race; most of the day was cloudy (which isn't bad, really) but rain-free.  Not that that would have made much difference on the course, much of which was apparently under water during the unusually heavy August/September rains we had.  The going was on the slow side, even on what should have been the faster trails, due to mud; the overall winner was about 25 minutes over the race record. 

Entrant's jacket and finisher's hat.

I arrived about an hour before the start time and picked up my package and spiffy entrant's jacket in a nice light rain, then headed back to the dressing room (my car) to change.  I had the foresight to pack a variety of options for race wear in my gym bag and ultimately went with a long sleeve tech shirt, my new Soloman trail shorts, and my Phillie's hat - because, you gotta represent during the playoffs!  (It was a hit with the guys at the aid stations.)  This was the inaugural run for these shorts, which were a combination of a light compression short under a light tech short.  I decided to try this type of short after finding that regular running shorts, once soaked, as mine inevitably become during trail races, chafe, no matter how thin your thighs.  Big win for me here - they were very comfortable and worked brilliantly. 

Prior to entering this race, I'd heard that the course was pretty tough; lots of vertical gain and some pretty tough hills.  For this reason, I was concerned, going in, with making the time, and my goal became just that - to finish the race within the time allotted.  The first ten miles of the race, however, contained very little up and down.  I didn't walk much, except where necessary due to mud, but wasn't exactly blazing along the trails.  No, I was more or less staying with people I thought were going at a conservative pace, which was part of my strategy on the day.  The strategy, suggested by an ultra runner's blog, went something along the lines of, go slower than you think you need to during the first third of the race, do what you have to during the middle third, and go hard during the final third.  Sounds good, right?  I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to the time until around mile 7, when the person I had been chatting with for the past few miles suddenly said she thought we were going too slow to make the cut-off in time (if you weren't to mile 17.5 or so in four hours, they'd pull you off the course). 

Well, that galvanized the casual right out of me.  I didn't think she was right but for some reason, any semblance of mathematical ability suddenly took leave of my brain, so I couldn't confirm or refute what she was suggesting.  What became crystal clear to me in that moment was my determination to FINISH the race; no way in hell was I NOT making the cut-off and no way in HELL was I not running harder now, where despite what I'd heard about the course, the going was relatively easy and I could make time.  Fire lit under my ass, I left her behind and powered on.  This became my theme for the rest of the day; go hard where I could, chill where I couldn't, and the Strategy of Thirds be damned.  I got to mile 10 in about 2 hours, which eased my worries considerably; I had two hours to do the next 7.5 miles, which was in my mind doable regardless of the terrain.

Heh.  Which was good, because immediately following the mile 10 aid station, the terrain got interesting.  And when I say interesting, I mean in couple of places, I just looked up and said out loud, "Really?  O.K."  And up we went.  And then down, and over innumerable wooden bridges (which were slippery), and through a 20 foot, thigh deep water crossing (which honestly felt fantastic). 

The course was a mix of dirt trails alongside farm fields (!) and wooded trails, with a few short stints on gravel and paved roads.  One of the nice things about the trail was that in a few places, it was actually relatively safe enough that one could look around a bit and enjoy the scenery, which was beautiful PA farmland.  Thanks to this, I'm sure that if the course hadn't been so muddy, it would have run much faster for all, myself included.  The aid stations were stocked with just about anything you could want, from bananas and oranges to various types of cookies to sandwiches to bacon.  I stuck to fig newtons and bananas for the most part, with a couple of handfuls of M&Ms tossed in here and there.  The volunteers were fantastic; I can't compliment them enough.  There were enthusiastic and helpful and encouraging faces at every stop. 

Somewhere within the last two miles - back in the steady, light rain that started the day - I knew I was going to meet my goal and I knew I was just loving what I was doing.  I don't know why; my legs were yelling at me at the same time my mind was saying, "Go, GO!" and cheering me on.  Throughout the race I was doing a lot of positive self-talk; my mantra was what I heard a fellow karateka, also a wrestling coach (subject of another blog post entirely) telling his kids - you look good, you feel good, you got this.  No, I didn't set any records, I didn't place in my age group, I didn't set the world on fire.  But at the day's end, I killed my goal, I learned new things about myself, and I was happy as hell.

So my plan from here is to take it a bit easy this week.  For all intents and purposes, my 2011 race year is done, although I might still do the Dirty Bird 15K in November.  Might.  I think I'm finally starting to accept the idea that what I really love is this trail racing, trail ultra thing; much as I like strength training, I need to start looking at it as an integral part of a plan and not so much as a separate interest, into and of itself.  This sort of paradigm shift is something I've been reluctant to make, I suppose because I take pride in my strength and don't like to compromise it.  However I've never had a running season like this one; I've never run courses where strength really does make a huge difference in a practical manner (strong legs, strong core) and not so much in a numbers manner (looking just at the lifts at date A vs. date B).  At my age I've put in my highest running mileage, over the year, perhaps ever and aside from a few lost toenails and an ugly blister (I'm sparing you the photos of this one), I've been running-related injury free.  I'm seeing what supplementary activities make a difference for me (both strength training AND yoga), and it's falling into context.  I think what I started to feel during the end of the race was a sense that I really belonged out there, and that I wanted to stay.