The best part of this race is that it benefits the OCD Foundation of Western PA and they had the largest preregistered group yet - 87. They also had about 15 walkups, so they did OK considering this is their biggest fundraiser of the year. The next best part was that my family volunteered again for the third year in a row. The final best part is that I didn't take a DNF at the 3mi mark where the family was directing runners. Weather was pretty nice, overcast but a chilly 29o. We had to get there around 7:45am so the family could get in position along the route and get their marching orders. They had to drive to back side of the trail so I didn't have anywhere to sit and keep warm. I hung out talking with Terri from the Foundation until my buddy, Ken, arrived about 9:05am. He ran it with me last year. We waited for Tim to arrive a few minutes later and we started a little warmup jog. They called all the racers down at about 9:20am, chatted about the course and we started on time at 9:30am. I wish I had warmed up a bit more, but I don't know if it would have made much difference since it was freezing for those 10 mins, plus the 90 mins of just standing around before. Tim lined up closer to the front, Ken and I towards the back. A few minutes into the announcements, Tim came back saying he didn't feel very comfortable up there. About 30 sec later, he left and went back up so I'm guessing he felt less uncomfortable towards the back with Ken and I. :-) I lost Ken in the first few minutes with the traffic and the narrow trail, but it was OK since I figured I'd catch him on the hills. I had him in sight the entire time, but that first mile is a killer. I didn't want to go out too fast not being very warmed up, and although my recovered foot was feeling fine (could have just been numb from the cold), the blister or corn in between the 4th and 5th toes of my other foot was killing me. That pain never let up. Oh, and I had just grabbed some socks out of the drawer and didn't think much about it - they were my light summer socks and within the first 1/4 mi, they had slipped down off my heel and around my arch. I had my shoes tied pretty loosely, so that's likely the reason. On the roads it doesn't happen since there's not a lot of sliding around in the shoe, but the trail proved differently. Memorandum for next year, don't wear those socks. The course was back to it's usual route, a bit different from last years when they had to make a few changes to accommodate some repairs that were in process. Splits were: 11:10, 8:42, 11:31, 10:01, 11:21 Last year, I stuck with Ken since it was his first race and went at his pace until about the 4mi mark and then I left him and picked up the pace. I was in a lot better shape last year. This year I knew would be different. The gun went off and Tim took off with the lead 10 or so. I lost sight of him pretty quickly. He's been running a lot longer than Ken or I and is about 8 years younger so I knew he wasn't my competition and I'm glad he didn't hang back with us. The first mile is probably the toughest. It is mostly uphill, with a 220' 1/4mi climb at the end of that first mile. I walked part of that, but Ken kept going and I was losing sight of him. There were about 5 of us in a row walking a portion of that hill, we were all towards the back and I felt like it was a death march. Legs were tired already, and not having much competitive drive today didn't help. My expectations were low going into this race and were getting lower by the step at this point. After the first mile, it's mostly downhill so I was feeling a little better, but still wasn't gaining on Ken. My legs just weren't turning over like I wanted them to, but I was also pretty concerned about watching my step since the course was very heavily covered by leaves this year so it was hard to see the roots and rocks. The third mile was mostly uphill again and is where I saw the family. It was nice to see them and get high fives. I had heard them screaming, cheering Ken on and although I couldn't see him, I knew he wasn't too far ahead at that point. The desire to quit was there, especially after the mile of climbing and I
was so far back in the pack (there were maybe a handful of people behind
me), but I decided to push on and just finish it, knowing the rest of the race was rolling hills to downhill. I saw Ken ahead when I got to the water stop, I grabbed some water quickly, then headed out. I wasn't feeling confident that I'd catch him, but knew he'd probably be getting tired by now. I caught up to him toward the end of the 4th mile. I was feeling a lot better and felt like my normal running self during this 4th mile and could have passed him and kept going but I didn't really care about my time at this point, so I ran with him for a bit. He was struggling. I was telling him about last night and how my son and I had "dude time" and we had gotten Burger King and watched Captain America. Right at that moment, he didn't see a rock under the leaves and rolled his ankle pretty bad. We stopped and walked for 45 sec or so then he thought he could run it in. We took it slow the rest of the way in which is probably a good thing for me since that last 1/2 mi is about a 200' drop and I got going way too fast and out of control last year down that stretch. This year, I would have tried to make up time again and would have definitely hurt myself on a rock or root. I let Ken through the chute in front of me, so he technically beat me this year.
Tim did pretty well coming in at about 47:xx. He said he went out a little fast, but really liked the race and course. Ken and I snuck in just under the 53:00 mark. A little slower than last year, but still better than my low expectation goal of 55:00. I'm still feeling a bit disappointed that I wasn't better prepared this year, but it was still a good time and there's always next year!
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