TIme to Redeem Myself

After my disappointing performance at the 2009 Duo, I was pleased to hear about another set of races coming up in Richmond. The Richmond Riverrock festival was coming in May. There was going to be "The Scramble" which is a 10K trail race, the "Urban Assualt" which is the mountain bike race, a 5K Mud Run, trials riding competition, and even a dog jumping contest.

I was pretty excited about the whole thing. I signed up for the 10K Scramble and the Urban Assault. The run would be in the morning and the mountain bike race at noon. They were separate races and I would be in a minority of people doing both races but I looked at this as a golden opportunity to redeem myself. Also I knew a bunch of people doing the Scramble so that would be fun too.

I had never done the Scramble but I knew the course from running Xterra. The course has some creek crossings, the Myan Ruins, some wicked stairs, some muddy trails, and a grassy finish on Brown's Island with a jamming band.

I started out pretty strong and was able to keep a pretty good pace throughout the race. This was not a normal 10K so I would be lucky to finish in 1 hour. Towards the end of the race, I was really feeling great and passed a lot of people in the woods and finished strong with a 59:19-just under 1 hour. I felt pretty good about it.

After the Scramble, I hung out for a little on the Island but then went back to get my bike and gear and rehydrate. I drank some chocolate milk, and gatorade and ate some pickles and powergels, and bananas. Then I was off to the starting line.

They did wave starts and my wave was near the end. The race pace was fast and furious from the very beginning and I was instantly in last place. I was not going to push it real hard. Mostly I just wanted to race the course again and finish strong. This time around I did not have any cramps, I could breathe fine, and while I was a little spent from the 10K, I was able to finish strong in 1:47:34. I even had a great sprinting finish and managed to finish about 10th from last. I was fine with my performance. While I love to ride, I have never been what you would call a strong rider so I could really not expect to finish much higher in the standings.

I felt like I had redeemed myself. But at the same time, I did not know anyone at the finish line and was pretty much ready to go home. So I rode my bike back to the van and headed home.

It felt good to have a good day of racing and I started to think about what my next race would be. I had always wanted to do an ultra marathon so I started looking around on the Internet for a race. I found a September trail race that was a 50k in Northern Virginia. I decided I would see if I could ramp up for this race and then use the Richmond Marathon as a fall back race.

When training for a trail race, it is always a good idea to run trails. And I had a unique opportunity to do a lot of trail running. During the summer, we work 4 1o hour days with every Friday off. This would give me ample opportunity to run trails on Fridays and still have the weekends free to do other things.

In my next installment I will talk about my adventures running the Appalachian Trails in the Shenandoah National Park. Stay tuned.