Trail Running Debut: Lil Rhody Runaround 8 miler -- 7th overall, 1st age group

In just my third real race of 2020, it seems that I have learned very little in my decade plus at this sport. I didn't have the legs to run the race that I wanted and it was entirely my fault. 

2020 has been a forgetful year to say the least. I kicked things off with a bang with a 1:15:03 half marathon in January. After that, COVID hit, I spent a lot of time injured, and I ventured out into the triathlon world. With ongoing achilles struggles through the spring and with no chance of racing due to COVID, I took A LOT of time off from running. I hit the bike hard and did my best in the pool to become passable for the swim portion of a triathlon. I debuted at a hilly Olympic Triathlon in September and won my age group. Following that performance, I have started a training plan focused on the 5k distance set to conclude with a time trial at the end of the month. I have continued to swim and bike. I have slowly built my running mileage back up. This past weekend I had an 8 mile tempo at marathon pace on the calendar. I decided to sign up for the Lil Rhody Runaround 8 mile trail race since it was going to happen and is a local staple. I have, somehow, never run an actual trail race. I ran on trails all the time in Oregon and was supposed to run a trail 50k but that race got cancelled back in 2017. I have not trained on technical trails since those days.

I put in my biggest week in terms of training volume from 2 weeks to 1 week out from the trail race. I hit 60 miles for the first time in a long time and still incorporated a steady dose of swimming and biking. The week of the race I simply did too much quality to have fresh legs for the race. I did 4 x 1600 on the track. I did a hard swim set of 50 yard repeats. I did a hard bike workout. I ran a 3k in 9:43, after foolishly going out in 5:05 the Thursday before the Sunday race. Looking at my competition for this race, I figured anywhere from 4th-6th might be right. There were a couple of studs up front but my road PRs probably would have had me pegged at 3rd or 4th going into the race. One caveat is that I'm in decent 5k shape right now and got in a good 8k tempo on the roads but I haven't done a workout with 5 miles or more of volume in several months. That's why I had the 8 mile tempo on the schedule to begin with. I needed a strength session and I went to this race to get one in.

The race was super well run, given the complications of COVID. They read our temperatures pre race, masks were to be worn until you started running, waves of 10 runners would go off at 30 second intervals. I was in the first ten to go off and was excited to see how things would play out.

We set off at a relatively calm clip from the gun. I have seen some splits from previous editions of the race and the first two miles or so are decently runnable. Sometimes you see splits in the 5:20s/5:30s, which would have been a stretch for me -- going out at road 10k pace in a trail 8 miler was not in my best interests. We, however, stayed in a big pack for the first mile and went through in 5:50ish. A group of 3 quickly split off and covered mile 2 in the 5:30s. I stayed in a chase pack of 4 and we hit another mile in the 5:50s. Someone from our group (I think the eventual 6th place finisher) took off in between miles 1 & 2 & tried to regain contact with the leaders. So we entered into the more technical part of the race in the classic 3-1-3 formation in the top-7.

At around 3 miles, we started navigating some narrow and slick wooden bridges. I took them really cautiously and a gap started to open up in front of me. I fell behind 5th and 6th by ~ 100m but the gap stayed there for a bit. After another mile or two 5th had gapped 6th and I was still hanging in there by about the same distance. We hit a road segment at maybe 4.5 miles and I could see three or four runners in front of me, with everyone spaced out by small margins. My legs felt heavy but it looked as though I was gaining on 6th on the road stretch. We got back to the trail after maybe just a quarter of a mile and I worked hard over the next 10:00 or so to real 6th back in. I passed them right around 6 miles. That felt good but it was short lived. Someone rolled up on me not even a minute later who had seemingly really fresh legs. I might as well have been standing still when they went by. I tried to go with their surge but, again, didn't have that extra gear.

I stayed in 7th from there to the finish line. The last kilometer or so is a downhill stretch of road leading to the finish line. I thought I was pushing well but I was more/less maintaining. I finished ~ 5 seconds behind the person that passed me but they actually started in the 2nd wave so they had me by 35 seconds and finished 5th. I did close that gap down from maybe 20-30 seconds down to 5 but they already had some time banked. 6th place had me by just 15 seconds. 4th was 45 seconds in front of me, and 3rd had me by a minute.

I really think that I could have challenged anywhere from 3rd through 6th with fresher legs and more aggressive running. I underperformed a bit based on my PRs. I definitely worked hard and left everything out there. I just needed that extra 1% from a taper and I'm running neck and neck with the 4th place runner, trying to close on 3rd, instead of battling it out for 6th/7th. Overall, I'm happy to finally get a trail race under my belt. Some of the folks in front of me were course veterans and it probably helped to know the course a little better than I did. They also all ran great races. Most people ran pretty even efforts and calculated their effort right. I did this to myself. I have a habit of not backing off of training, racing reasonably well, but being disappointed about not running to my potential. It stings a little more with so few racing opportunities to know that you should have done a little bit better but were training through the race. I have another opportunity coming up this weekend at the USATF-NE 5km XC Championships, which is why I didn't back off the past two weeks. The fields look good, albeit not as strong as years past. It looks like there might be 50ish runners toeing the line and my PR will be somewhere in the 15-20 range. I'm going to back off training this week and give myself a fighting chance for a strong result. This is most likely my last race of 2020 minus a 5k time trial coming at the end of the month. There is no reason not to go for a fast time. I haven't run cross country since 2017. I should be due for a PR just from a lack of racing XC.

I am excited to give it another go this weekend!