Somehow I got the bright idea that it would be “fun” to do a bunch of cross country (running) races this Fall. I pretty much only run trail anyway, and the distances are short enough that I should be able to fake it on the little bit of running I do. A “good week” for me is 4 runs with the “long” one being about an hour. Yes, I am hard core.
I was supposed to race last weekend but I was exhausted from hosting and cleaning up after a dinner party. It was also really cold out and raining sideways - so I bailed and slept 'til 12:20 instead. 
This weekend I made it to the start line on an absolutely gorgeous sunny day, with the weather in the low 20s. Perfect weather.
The start time was a luxurious 11am gun and I arrived with plenty of time to screw around and get in a good warm up. I ran into a few friends before the race, made some new ones, and we took an easy warm-up lap of the 3k course. It was mostly gravel (so not “true” xc terrain) but there were a few rolling hills and one longer, relatively steep one.
A little bit of goofing off at the start line with the RD asking Adrienne and I to stand up (no hands touching the ground) and we were off. I didn’t think I started that hard but as the trail narrowed a little bit and I settled in with the group I noticed that everyone around me was young, fit, and wearing a college or club team singlet. Uh-oh… I glanced down at my watch and it said 2:48/km. That’s not good… My plan had been to try to hold ~4:30/km for as long as I could, and then just gut it out to the end. This was significantly faster than I had planned and I shut it down right away. 3:10… 3:40… 4:25… ok - let’s hold it there.
Down a slight hill, around a corner and WTF? Where the hell did this hill come from? I don’t remember this from the warm-up lap we did… This was the beginning of the payback from my jackrabbit start. It got worse from there. I started to run backwards through the field and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. Back up a slight incline and I was hurting. I knew the two worst hills were still yet to come, and there was another small one before that. This is going to SUCK. Oh well - it’s 8k. How bad can it be?
The first lap came and went and it really wasn’t that bad. Painful, yes - but not that bad. The second lap was the one that was going to really hurt. Before the race I ran into a kid who regularly kicks my ass at the Tuesday Night Ski Races. He also runs for one of the local fast running clubs. I had told him “no lapping me” and about a 3rd of the way into my 2nd lap I started to wonder where he was. I was struggling to keep the pace even close to 5min/km when it wasn’t downhill and my breathing had long ago become heavy and ragged. I was still passing people going up and down the hills, but on the flats I was losing ground like crazy. The effort was still high, but the results weren’t there. Not on the flats, anyway. Just suck it up and hold it together. Push the uphills and let the legs run on the descents. The lungs will find a place to recover. On one side of the line or the other. Run the tangents. Don’t. Slow. Down.
Just as I started my 3rd lap (2x 3k and then a 2k lap to finish) he went streaking by on his way to the finish. Good - he didn’t get me. I yelled at the marshal to make him do another lap but she knew he was done and just thought I was confused. The last lap was interesting because I knew there was a cutoff somewhere, but I had no idea where. It turned out to be two small cutoffs. There was no way I was going to be able to descend for the entire last 2k so I just kept the effort close to redline and held on. Even powering up the last hill with less than 400m to go I knew that if I kicked I wouldn’t last to the finish. I stared a ramp up to whatever I had left - which wasn’t a tonne, really. Strong-esque finish in 38:26 for 38th place overall (out of 63), with an average pace of 4:49. Not exactly what I had been hoping to do, but I’ll take it.
Damn, that hurt. Such a short race but I was pretty much wrecked for the rest of the day…
Results: http://www.raceheadquarters.com/results/2011/run/WSR20118kOA.html
Adrienne crushed it taking 11th OA for the Open Women’s 6k: http://www.raceheadquarters.com/results/2011/run/WSR20116kOA.html (Yes, it did occur to me to cup my moobs and try to finish after 2 laps as a woman; but David flying past me as he finished distracted me and I forgot.)
I’ll edit this post with pics once they go up if there are any good ones.