The other weekend was my first Grand Tree race of the year – the Greylock Trail race! This is a great course, testing all aspects of trail racing. Sustained uphills, technical downhills, fun singletrack, and some grinding false flats. Not to say I like any of this aside from the technical downhills, but I do think it’s good to push myself on terrain that isn’t naturally my favorite. And having the two past years of data to compare myself always satisfies my inner nerd.
I headed out with a small
group of junior skiers, like last year, for a combined Massachusetts Team
training weekend. Perry and the Berkshire Nordic crew led us on a really nice
little ski in Savoy (oh, I’ll miss that trail race this year! Huge bummer that
it’s done), on very nice pavement with wide shoulders. We don’t have that in
eastern MA, and it made me miss NY state rollerskiing adventures. We followed this up with some cliff jumping, yoga, pizza, and
s’mores, so all in all it was a pretty idyllic day.
Sunday dawned pretty hot,
and I was cursing myself for not bringing my handheld waterbottle carrier. I
debated running with a waist belt, or just carrying the bottle outright, but
decided that it probably wouldn’t be THAT bad to just drink at the aid
stations. Oops. Only one other of my juniors was doing the long race, and one
dad, the rest signed up for the 5k. Ed did the long race, of course!
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We started out up the mountain, and I took it easy, falling into a comfortable pace. Too comfortable,
really. I felt good, which is not actually a good sign on a 3-mile climb! My
calves were behaving, and as we hit the AT in the sun I found that I had some
more gears, so started to pick off some runners ahead of me. I could hear
Debbie behind me, so I knew I was doing ok if she hadn’t passed me on the
climb. I was starting to notice the heat, though, already getting dry mouth, so
I told myself I had to get on top of this hydration issue as soon as I hit that
aid station.
I drank 3 cups of water
and 2 cups of Gatorade. You can imagine how long this took. I was there nearly
a minute! Debbie passed me with a couple ladies in tow, and as I started out
after them I realized the magnitude of my mistake. Not only did I not have any
water for between the aid stations, I had to do all my descending on a very
sloshy belly. You doofus!
Luckily the sloshing
didn’t turn into a dreaded stomach cramp, and I caught back up to Debbie (who
was definitely not pleased to be passed on a downhill! Sorry babe, I do that
part pretty well) and a bunch more ladies on the descent. Apparently I just
missed seeing a moose – I heard noise behind me but had assumed it was a
runner, and was totally in race-mode, don’t look back!
A girl in pink caught
back up at the second aid station, as I spent another minute drinking, and I
let her go a bit, just trying to enjoy that next bit of singletrack at my own
pace. I was consciously keeping myself in a very happy spot, just loving these
trails and dancing my feet across the roots. I caught up easily along Jones’
Nose, but decided to hang out behind her for a bit, and try to recover. The
heat was getting to me, and I could feel the fatigue creep.
At the third water stop,
pink-girl didn’t stop, and I only drank 3 cups of water, thus only losing maybe
30 seconds, then shoved ice into any orifice I could find and set off to chase
down pink-girl. I luckily caught her while still on the downhill, and we
climbed together for a bit on the relentless loose-rock doubletrack. Eventually
my slow jog started to outdistance hers, and I found myself picking off bonking
men again. We finally started the downhill, and I could tell I was tired – both
ankles were doing those danger-rolls – not quite a rolled ankle, but near
misses. I backed off a little, not willing to risk injury, and just feeling
kind of fragile. Couple times I had to remind myself out loud to have strong
feet. Unfortunately I couldn’t hold off the ankle-roll demons forever, and went
over on my right ankle just where it gets steep with ~1.5mi to go. So close to
the end I knew I could walk this off, but I was not happy about that turn of
events.
It was only a minute or
two that I was walking and then gingerly running, but that was a much slower finish than I've had before. I was
in no-man’s land, and thankfully didn't get passed by anyone in the last mile of the race. The relaxed finish put me just a minute ahead of last year (which
had been super slow in the rain and wet), but 4 minutes behind the year before.
I think I can attribute most of that to the water stops and then the ankle roll
slow-down, so I’m actually feeling pretty good about this one. I was second, four
minutes behind a little J2 skier from western MA who I coached last year at
EHS, who goes up hills like it's her job. She probably got to the top of that thing in under 30 minutes…
Next up is the Rocky
Mountain Orienteering Festival! Time to see if I remember how to race at
altitude!
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