Sadly I missed the hugely
popular, competitive and well directed Wedding Bells Relay 5k. It looked like a great time. Instead I
ran, hiked, and crawled the Wahsatch Steeplechase, which is quite possibly my
all-time favorite race.
After several weeks on the bike and only recently getting back to
running I didn't really know what to expect. Turns out my 50 mile bike
rides and climbing the canyons got the quads race ready and I improved my best
time by 5 minutes and also set a new course record by 36 seconds. For a
33 year old race I thought that was nifty. The mileage chart below tells the
story best, i.e. my pace ranged from 5:15 to 17:13 :), but I
will attempt to add some commentary. I went out fairly conservatively and was
in second place through about mile two. From there the leader dropped back and it was just me and Josh Steffen
for next 3 to 4 miles. We swapped the
lead a few times and then right at about mile 6 I started to pulling away
slowly. By that point my quads were
sucking oxygen and I was barely getting any recovery on the flats. It felt like I was barely moving but I guess
in a race like this moving at times is better than average. Having run this race before I decided to not even
try to run mile 7 because the extra energy it takes to stay running isn’t
justified by the slight gains in speed. Surprisingly I finished that mile in 17 minutes which I think is about 3
minutes faster than last time. This
goes to show that while my quads were in much better shape this time around as
result of my road bike climbs up the canyons. Someone is sure to disagree but in my opinion there is no better way to build
quad strength than biking up hills. This seems like common sense, at least to me, because there is no other exercise
that requires 100% of the effort and power to come from one muscle.
After I finished that never
ending climb/hike I did my best to navigate and jump over and down the crags at
the top of Big Mountain. That lasted
longer than I remember so it was great relief to hit the aid station at the
end. I grabbed some water and Swedish Fish
and continued on my way. This is where the race
gets fun. Basically you get to lose
2,000 ft. in about 2 miles and you obviously try to do it as fast as possibly
without falling off of the course. That section
went relatively smooth this time around meaning I was only terrified of
falling a few times instead of 10. This
was a result of the dryer year and less vegetation which made it easier to see
my footing.
Getting off the downhill at mile
11 felt great and from there it’s just a matter of holding on and letting
gravity do the work. I put in some good
splits on the miles down the City Creek Canyon road and held up ok on the later
miles down the single track that parallels the road. I came off the trail in about 2:09 and knew
that I had about a mile to finish, which meant I needed to run a sub 6 minute
mile to break the old CR. Fortunately the bottom of City Creek and the road
down Memory Grove are fairly steep so I was able to put in around a 5:45 mile.
After I finished I had no choice
but to lay face down in the creek. This is bound to help my staircase descents
tomorrow. The next hour was spent conducting
surgery with my multi-functional bib pins on my new blisters and chatting with the racers about
their war stories. Promptly
at 10:30 (trail race directors don’t mess around) Butch gave out the typical trail
race awards (trail shoes, headlamp, backpack, cool hat, and decorated bowl). And as a surprise I got a little cash for the
CR. Not only are trail races and directors cool, they are also creative with
their shirts. Because last year's course had to
be changed due to the snow pack, this year’s motto was “Back to
Black”, i.e. back to Black Mountain. Cool logo is shown below. Congrats to Josh who finished 2nd and just over 2:20 in his first attempt. Unfortunateley the Utah running scene will be losing him because he and his family are moving to New Hampshire. On the women's side, an out of stater, Annie O'Donnell ran an impressive 2:41 (4 minutes off the course record) and Liz Butler was second with a 2:44. Carl Swenson was the previous CR holder. As an Olympic Cross Country skiier and professional mountain biker, this was probably a race he entered last minute and just for fun. Time | Distance | Split time | Elev. chg. | 0:06:53 | 1 | 6:53 | 191 | 0:16:06 | 2 | 9:12 | 531 | 0:24:05 | 3 | 7:59 | 336 | 0:32:09 | 4 | 8:04 | 315 | 0:41:14 | 5 | 9:04 | 371 | 0:50:44 | 6 | 9:29 | 488 | 1:07:57 | 7 | 17:13 | 1,068 | 1:22:40 | 8 | 14:43 | -56 | 1:30:31 | 9 | 7:50 | -1,284 | 1:36:51 | 10 | 6:19 | -549 | 1:42:06 | 11 | 5:15 | -340 | 1:47:45 | 12 | 5:39 | -237 | 1:54:03 | 13 | 6:17 | -143 | 2:00:18 | 14 | 6:14 | -218 | 2:06:54 | 15 | 6:35 | -206 | 2:12:43 | 16 | 5:49 | -221 | 2:14:29 | 16.3 | 2:21 | -61 |
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