The 2022 Berlin Pond 5 Mile race fell just a few days after I ran 27 miles at Six Hours on Lovers Lane. Right off the top, this doesn’t sound like the circumstance to run a great race. That said, I felt surprisingly strong in the couple of shakeout/recovery runs that had followed, so maybe I had something to give for this.
For most of the races I enter, I have one our two sources of motivation. First is competition against myself, especially for races I’ve run before, or for common distances like 5 kilometers. Naturally, I want to do better than before. Second, for CVR race series, is competition for points against other people in my age group.
By now, the CVR series is shot for me. Both Sal Acosta and Peter Lucyx are much faster, and one of those two is going to win the division. I am usually stuck going for 85-90 points when they run. Sal was in this race, so I wanted to do my best against Sal. But the primary motivation was simply to improve my personal record in this race.
I’ve been feeling quite slow this summer. On the one hand, one is supposed to get slower as one ages. On the other hand, I’m still early enough in my running career that I think I should be getting faster. On the other other hand, training for (and running) the marathon took a lot out of me, and it took a couple of months to recover.
Most of those hands point to a slowish race, but there’s some gray area there.
I set my PR last year, with a time of 42:15. So that was the goal. In my mind, and having reviewed the results of others in previous races, I think I should be able to break 40:00. That’s a sub-8-minute mile pace, and there’s really nothing in my history that suggests I can sustain that over five miles. Especially given the hills at the start.
But stretch goals are good. I had done some intervals on one of my runs earlier in the week, and mentioned to Katie that it would be nice to keep that kind of pace over a long distance. I was going to make it my goal to try to run, and sustain, a fast interval pace over the last two miles of the course, which are basically flat.
The weather was cooperative. The temperature was in the high 70s, and there was some humidity, but this was actually a relief from the conditions we’ve been dealing with for the last few months. 55 runners toed the line for the 6:00 p.m. start. I was middle of the pack at the start line, and things sorted out quickly in the first few minutes, as they usually do.
After a short, flat start, the climbing starts before the half-mile mark and continues for about a mile and a half. Things are mostly level until the two-mile mark before a steep downhill on Mirror Lake Road. The second half of the race is basically flat.
On the first climb I found myself trading places with Tim Hogeboom, this guy Kevin, a woman with a pink tank top, and a guy with a long gray beard and an orange tank top. I’ve never finished behind Kevin before, and I didn’t know the other two, but Tim is a bellweather for me. I’ve finished ahead of him in most races this year, but he beat me pretty handily at Bear Swamp. I wanted to stay ahead of him. In front of me were two other nemeses, Donna Smyers and Shannon Salembier, both of whom tend to be in my sight and yet never beatable in races.
By the second climb, I was behind Donna and Shannon, but ahead of the rest. I certainly didn’t crush the first two miles, with paces just over 8:45, but I felt okay. Sub-40:00 was already unrealistic though. I didn’t hear anybody particularly close behind me, but I allowed myself a look as I turned onto Mirror Lake for the big downhill. I could see the bright orange tank of the bearded guy, but no one else was all that close.
I usually do pretty well on the downhills, and this was no exception. There was a water station shortly before the halfway mark, and since I saw Donna get some water ahead of me, I decided to do the same. I figured the brief slowdown would be offset by the benefits of additional hydration the rest of the way.
As I turned onto Paine Turnpike for the run back to the finish, I realize my notion of running a fast pace would not come to pass. I felt strong enough, but the leg turnover wasn’t there. Still, I was trying to keep my pace close to 8:00, and I wasn’t all that far off. Mile three, with the downhill, was in 8:07, and mile four was in 8:13.
Somewhere around the 3.5-mile mark I was hearing footsteps behind me, and they were getting closer. It was the beard guy in the orange tank, and he passed me with about a mile and a third to go. I decided to use him as a rabbit and try to stay on his heels, which was semi-successful. He gained ground on me, but it definitely got me to speed up my own pace a little.
Orange tank guy created some space between us, but with about 3/4 of a mile left I made another concerted effort to speed things up, and I got myself under an 8:00 pace. I even gained some ground back on the beard guy. We rounded back on to Brookfield Road and toward the finish, and I was trying to catch up, but he sped up as well. My friend Manny saw me near the finish and yelled, “sprint it in, Joe!” I replied that I was sprinting, and he said “oh!” I guess it didn’t look like that!
In the end I couldn’t quite catch orange tank guy. He beat me by three seconds. Donna finished almost a minute ahead of me, and Shannon another minute ahead of her. Yet when I caught sight of the clock, I made every effort to finish under 42 minutes, and I made it in 41:49. This was a PR for this race by nearly half a minute.
Kind of a mixed bag in the end. I know that I can do better, but I also know that I wasn’t in the best position to kill this race. Ultimately getting a PR under the circumstances is a pretty good result. I probably won’t do the six hour race next summer, so maybe I’ll be in position to really give that 40-minute target a go.
RACE SUMMARY: Distance: 5 miles Time: 41:49 Pace: 8:22 Place: 28/55 Age Group: 5/6 CVR Points: 86.0104
A different sort of race. Run the same loop over and over as many times as you can over the course of six hours. Whoever runs the most laps wins. Is this a test of one’s mental and physical fortitude, or a guaranteed descent into madness?
Only one way to find out.
Last year my friends Matt and Darrel, and probably a couple other people I know, ran the inaugural edition of this race. It wasn’t really on my radar until the Race for DFL last November, where Katie chatted with the race director Astrid while they were hanging around waiting for me and Astrid’s husband John to run a different infinite loop.
I rather enjoyed the loop format of the DFL race, and this seemed similar enough that I figured I would like this race, too. Following on the heels of the Moosalamo debacle, it seemed like a good opportunity to overreact to something not going my way. And I also thought it would be a good measure to help decide if I want to run the marathon at Groton Forest in September, or just the 25K race.
Katie and I both signed up for this race, but unfortunately Katie sprained her ankle on a CVR trail run the weekend before, and wasn’t going to be able to give the full six hours a go. I felt bad, because I was responsible for her not finishing Moose, and this was going to turn into another shortfall for her. Still, she had a bib and was ready to at least walk a few laps.
This has been a hot and humid summer, but we lucked into some good weather for this race. (This is somewhat surprising given Matt’s track record of bringing scorching temps to his ultra races.) The temperature was in the low 60s at race time, and would only climb to the mid-70’s under somewhat overcast skies during the day. At 9:00 a.m., 42 entrants were off and running.
I entered with really just one goal, to run a marathon distance by the end. In May I ran the Vermont City Marathon in 4:30; I figured the extra time for this race would accommodate the significantly greater elevation gain. Each 1.8-mile loop here had 230 feet of gain, approximately 1/4 of the Burlington course in total. I also figured the fact we returned to base camp every 20 minutes or so would ensure I could meet my nutrition and hydration needs.
The first lap was spent learning the course. Knowing I was in for the long haul, I started out at a leisurely jog. I was following a couple of runners who looked like they had done a few of these rodeos in the past. I heard one tell the other that she wanted to at least do a marathon on the day. I appreciated their pace at the start, to keep myself in check. The course gained about 165 feet net over the first mile, followed by a steep downhill which gave back 100 feet over the next quarter mile. Then there was another short, steep climb before the loop finished with a half mile of downhill and flat.
The course is a figure eight, and there’s a crossover section in the middle where racers go in both directions. The surface was a combo of single track and double track trail, with some woods roads mixed in. Nothing was too technical. Probably the worst footing was due to some rutting that resulted from heavy equipment that had been brought in to clear a storm blowdown just a few days before the race.
The folks in front of me were a little slower than I wanted on the downhill, so I scooted around them before the last climb, and basically ran at my own pace the rest of the day. I finished the first lap in under 20 minutes. So far, so good. I had calculated that I needed 14 laps, so just 13 more to go.
The second lap was basically a repeat of the first, and the third more of the same. At each lap, Astrid, Jon, or one of the volunteers placed a mark on my bib to keep track of laps. Coming back on the second lap, I crossed paths with Katie coming in the other direction. She had run the first lap but was walking the second one. I caught up to her again as I was finishing the third lap.
I had finished three laps in an hour, and Astrid remarked that she thought I was doing well. By now my breakfast of oatmeal and toast was no longer serving me, so I took a couple of shot blocks to keep me going.
Early in the fourth lap the lead runner passed me for the first time. A little while later two others also went past. We were already six miles in, so I didn’t mind this. A few laps later I started to see Matt as we crossed paths in the middle section, meaning he was about half a lap ahead of me. I was also beginning to cross paths with our friend Ali, the only other entrant I knew, meaning I was about half a lap ahead of her. I think on the fifth lap I started passing other racers myself. We were getting to that point where I really didn’t know who was on what lap any more.
After lap number five, nine miles in, my stomach was saying “give me food,” so I stopped for a bit and had some of the outstanding mashed potatoes (boiling them in bouillon is the key) we had made the night before. I was still doing 20-minute laps, which was a bit faster than I had originally planned, but I wasn’t running a taxing pace and I was giving myself cushion for some slow laps later. I finished the sixth lap at just over two hours. Only 8 laps to go and four hours to finish them. That’s easy math!
Okay, well the math wasn’t quite that easy. As it turned out, 14 laps was going to be more like 25 miles, not 26. After lap seven I was at 12.5 miles, though still with over 3.5 hours to go. I took a more extended break at this time, eating some more mashed potatoes and part of a PBJ sandwich. Lap eight was a little slower, as I was now starting to embrace the ultramarathoner ethic of walking the uphills. As the day continued, the definition of “uphill” would become more inclusive.
The next two laps were done at a 28-minute pace, as I was definitely walking even small uphills now. I was marking two things: 1) I had passed a few people on the steep downhill over recent laps, and it seemed like every single time they stepped aside at the same rock in the middle of the trail. Just where you don’t want to be distracted. 2) One soft spot at the end of the loop had the two softest pallets I’ve ever seen placed for “bridges.” I figured they would be broken by the end of the day, with a few hundred runner laps passing over them, but they survived. And I never passed anyone at that rock after I really noticed the pattern.
At the end of lap nine I got back to the tent and saw Matt hanging out with Katie. This surprised me, because Matt had never passed me. It turns out that his leg was bothering him, so he was taking a break. I stopped and chatted and got some more mashed potatoes. Katie wanted to walk a lap, or part of one, with me. I wanted to run one more to get to ten laps/18 miles/two-thirds of my goal. I finished that at 3:45 into the race, so I still had over two hours to finish up 8 more miles. Easy peasy!
Katie, Matt and I walked the whole next lap together, then Matt and I ran the next one together. Combined with the recent breaks, the walking lap left me somewhat rejuvenated. So lap 12 (21.6 miles) was done at 4:50, lap 13 (23.4) at 5:15, and lap 14 (25.2) at 5:42. Before the 14th lap I confirmed that the rule was you need to start your last lap before six hours, not finish it. During this lap, Ali came jogging by, looking like she could go all day. Somewhere along the way, she had gotten ahead of me, and now she was motivated to get around for a bonus lap.
Katie joined me for the last lap, which we walked together. By this point my feet and muscles were sore – no injuries, just over used – and I was thinking I could just walk a half loop to get to 26. When we got to the crossover spot I started making a motion toward the finish line, and Katie said, “you aren’t going to do the whole lap?” I thought about it for a moment and decided that I could probably survive the extra mile or so to do the full lap. We didn’t get back until the 6:15 mark, and a full 27 miles. For her part, Katie ended up doing 4.5 laps, so over 8 miles. Not bad for having a sprained ankle!
This was a fun experience, and I would do it again, especially if acclimated to more miles. Astrid and John put on a well-run event, and I would recommend. But six hours of running is a lot, and it helped me decide that I don’t want to take on the longer distance at Groton just four weeks later.
RACE SUMMARY Format: Repeated laps on a 1.75-mile course over six hours Result: 15 laps, 26.25 miles officially. (27.1 miles per Strava) Place: T12/42 racers.
In life, there’s a distinction to be made between things not going right, and things going wrong. If things don’t go right, nothing really bad happens, but nothing good happens either. If things go wrong, something bad happens. Maybe more than one “something bad.”
A good recent race example of the former would be the Birdland 5K.
A good recent race example of the latter would be the Moosalamoo 14-miler. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Katie and I wanted to run the 14-mile “heavy half marathon” at Moosalamoo in 2021, but it sold out before we registered. (There is also a 36-mile ultramarathon). When registration opened for this year’s race, we were on top of it. It’s run out of the same spot as the Inifinitus races, in a beautiful part of the state, and seemed like a good test/tuneup for Groton Forest in September, especially if I want to take on the marathon distance in that race.
I was feeling really good heading into the race. Katie and I had done some progressively long/hilly runs in the weeks leading up to prepare, and the leg injuries lingering from the marathon had finally subsided. I felt good about the distance, the weather forecast was perfect, and I was researching how my friends had done in previous races while carb loading with some spaghetti on Thursday night.
One of the best parts of running races is the carb loading. I love carbs. I love spaghetti more than any other food, even bread, which I love more than almost everything but spaghetti. I doused my spaghetti with a jar of sauce that I pulled out of the fridge, and it was delicious.
It was also, as it turns out, of unknown vintage. I went to bed feeling okay, but woke up Friday morning feeling not okay. I had some general achiness, and what we will call GI upset. Diarrhea, fever, and general bloatiness and discomfort. It was, in my amateur diagnosis, a mild case of food poisoning. I spent the day alternating between getting ready for the race and taking naps. As Katie and I went to bed Friday night, my plan was to go to the Blueberry Hill Inn in Goshen Saturday morning and run if everything felt okay.
Everything didn’t feel okay on Saturday, but the most important thing was that the diarrhea was over. My stomach was still bloaty and I was still a bit achy, but I could run with that. Some friends recently ran in the Vermont 100 race and came down with upset stomachs during the race. I figured this could be like the last 14 miles of a 100-miler, only without the already-fatigued legs.
We made a couple of friends in the parking lot before the race, in particular a guy who had come from New York that morning. He had originally signed up for the 36-miler, but dropped to the 14-miler as the day approached. Our friend Tom had done the same. We had two other friends running, Nick (also running the 14), and Tara, who was taking on her longest-ever race with the 36.
The five of us – Tara, Tom, Nick, Katie and I – started and ran the first few miles together. The first two miles were on the Goshen-Ripton road, a nice gravel surface, followed by a half mile on more gravel campground road and another flat half on single track hiking trails. On Thursday I had notions of finishing the race in 3:15 or so, with 3:30 being kind of the worst-case scenario, but given my stomach situation my new goal was to take it easy and finish whenever I got there.
Slightly after mile three, the climb began to the peak of Mt. Moosalamoo. Over the next 2.5 miles we would gain 1,200 feet. For the most part it wasn’t all that steep, but my stomach balked at any thought of running up the hill. So I walked, and Katie stayed back to walk with me. The others went on their way ahead of us.
It was a nice hike up. The woods were beautiful and the trails were in good shape. We jogged on a few flat parts, but otherwise were happy walking. Things got a little steeper as we neared the summit. The only problem was my gut – I was bloated and couldn’t release gas from either end of the digestive system.
We finally reached the peak at the 5.5-mile mark. It’s not an exposed summit, but there is a little rocky outcrop with a view where we stopped to take a couple of selfies. We had been passed by a few people on our way up, but were holding our own time-wise. The flatter surface was agreeable, and I was finally able to expel some gas. Luckily, Katie was in front of me for that!
I was suddenly feeling fairly decent. The ridge at the top of Mount Moosalamoo is absolutely gorgeous, with just enough view through the trees to see Lake Dunmore well below. Soon we were on the descent, which was quite a bit steeper than the climb. There would be no running on this part. Just at the seven-mile mark, Katie pointed out a tree with little holes in the trunk, calling it a woodpecker tree. As we ran past it, I sensed something else. First a loud hum and then some motion in the corner of my eye. Then a painful sting. It was wasps!
I found two wasps on me – I think they were yellowjackets – one on my right calf and one on my left ankle. The stings were painful, but worse still is the fact that I have allergies. I had an anaphylactic reaction to bee/wasp stings when I lived back in Maine, but I also have been stung by paper wasps since then with no ill effect. So I’m allergic, but I’m not 100% sure to what.
I was carrying an EpiPen, but didn’t really want to stab myself. My earlier reaction had come on slowly, and there was no immediate reaction here. Still, I was in a bit of a panic. In not my finest hour, thinking these were like snake bites, I asked Katie if she would suck the venom out of my stings. I don’t know if it did anything, but she reluctantly agreed. No other runners came along while this was going on. After we started moving again, she asked the perfectly reasonable question, “will elevating your heart rate move venom around your body more quickly?”
Well, yeah, probably.
I told Katie that if I did have a reaction, she would likely see swelling in my lips. I would also probably feel very itchy and get hives. We agreed to get to the aid station at mile 8 and assess.
It was with a sour stomach and bee venom on my mind that I did not see whatever it was I tripped over just a tenth of a mile before the aid station. It was on a downhill, and I went down fast and hard. I landed on my right side, including my face, and scraped my knee and forearm pretty good. I was stunned and bleeding from several places. I got up, and Katie and I sat on a log for a few minutes. Katie had a couple of paper towels and used some of her water to clean up the bleeding the best she could. Several runners came by, asked the right questions, and went on their way.
After a few minutes I was ready to at least make my way to the aid station, which was literally right around the corner from where I had fallen. We got some water – though only a little, because they were already running short – cleaned up a little more and got some first aid. I was feeling a little light-headed, so I sat on a cooler. There were cups of soda right next to me, so I had some Coke.
I had Katie check my face, and we noticed a little swelling in my lips. This was the sign that I was not looking forward to seeing. I decided to break out the EpiPen, and it didn’t work. I couldn’t get the needle to engage. This was not what I wanted at the moment.
So now I was getting really concerned. We talked to the guy at the aid station, a man named John Izzo who originated the race but no longer directed it. Given that it was probably four miles on foot back to the car, we asked him to give us a ride. His daughter was staffing the aid station with him, and convinced him that she would be okay without him. Most of the runners had been through by that point, anyway.
I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital, but the reaction was moving slowly enough that we had John take us back to the Inn so we could get the car. We had a very nice chat with him on the ride. He’s a running veteran who has run marathons in almost every state. He said the Mainly Marathons series was a great way to knock off a few states in a short amount of time. Maybe so, but I’m not sure running a marathon several days in a row will ever be in my future.
We finally arrived back at the Inn, and nothing bad was happening. We went to the finish line to inform the race director that we had dropped out. A couple of other participants overheard our conversation, and they happened to be nurses. They got some Benadryl, and brought an EMT friend over to check on me. He said, “I’m not going to tell you not to go to the hospital, but I don’t see any concerning symptoms.” By now it had been over an hour since the stings. I figured I was going to live.
At the car, we saw our New York friend, who said he had been stung three times during the race. (He also said the last six miles weren’t a lot of fun, so I guess I’m okay missing those.) Another woman said the wasps had gotten in her hair. We also saw our friend Tom, who finished in about 3:30, and said he hadn’t seen any evidence of bees or wasps. I guess there were just a few lucky ones like me! (My friend Lauren, when I told her about the experience, said she got stung seven times the first time she ran this race!)
The closest hospital was in Middlebury, so we decided to drive that way on the way back to Montpelier, just in case. We didn’t need to stop there, but it was okay because there was a restaurant we wanted to try in Richmond, and this was on the way there.
By now, the Benadryl was putting me in a coma. We got to Richmond and there was no way I was going into a restaurant, so we slept in the car for awhile. I finally came to, but we only then realized that the restaurant wasn’t going to be open for another two hours. So we headed back home.
Afterward, I found myself ambivalent toward giving this race another try. On the one hand, it’s unfinished business, and I don’t like to have unfinished business. On the other hand, the wasps really threw me for a loop, and the race is notorious for the wasps, it seems. It doesn’t appear these bugs are going to send me to the hospital, but I also don’t want to take that chance. And on the other other hand, there are lots of races in the summer. I will probably want to try something else next time.
RACE SUMMARY: Distance: 14 miles Did Not Finish, dropped after 8 miles.
Next up in the CVR race series, the Bear Swamp race in Middlesex. This was a good three-week break following the Birdland 5K. My injury problems were lessening, but still there, and there were good days in bad days. In particular, my lower right leg inflammation often bothered if I didn’t take ibuprofen before a run.
That said, I was feeling sluggish and slow on a lot of runs, even those with some so-called speed work, so I wasn’t necessarily feeling in “race” shape. But race day is different and all that, so I was somewhat optimistic I’d be able to match last year’s time of 48:32.
To remind the reader, this race is 5.7 miles. The first 2.25 are uphill and it’s relatively flat until the 3 mile mark, then it’s a fast downhill to the finish. In 2021 I ran the uphill in about a 9:45 pace, then the third mile in 9:25, before finishing in a pace under 8:00/mile. So that was the rough plan for 2022.
The starting field was smallish, with 42 entrants, but this was still nearly double the prior year. My nemesis Peter Lucyx was entered, so my goal was to finish close enough to him to have some respectable points. I never really saw him after we started, so that goal didn’t get off to the best start. The field stretched out pretty quickly in the first quarter mile, then thinned out even more over the next half mile as the climbing started on the way to the turn onto North Bear Swamp Road.
Going up North Bear Swamp Road I was behind Tim Hogeboom and John Hackney, two guys in the 70+ age group who I find myself finishing near in a lot of races. I’d finished ahead of them both in recent races, so I fully expected to overtake them both at some point. There really weren’t a lot of other runners around. I heard someone gaining on me and it was another friend, Michelle Risley, who passed me somewhere in mile two.
I wasn’t feeling all that lively on the climb, but finished mile one in 9:40, which was in the ballpark of what I was looking for for the race. Mile two was in 10:11 which, while I couldn’t remember my exact splits from last year, I didn’t remember any of them being over 10:00. So I was running behind.
Matt Caldwell was attending the aid station at the top of the hill, and when he saw me he noted that I was all by myself. While it was good that nobody was catching up to me, this also meant that I wasn’t particularly close to Tim, John or Michelle. After reaching the peak, the course turns into class four roads, narrow and windy with little visibility ahead. I never saw anybody in front of me. But I did realize that my expected burst of speed, post-climb, was not materializing.
So when I hit mile three, just before the downhill started, I was a bit disappointed to see that my time was over 30 minutes. That meant I needed to run 2.7 miles in 18 minutes to match last year’s time. Doing the math, that’s a pace I am incapable of running.
As the roads widened up again, I caught sight of Michelle and John in front of me. It was helpful to have rabbits to chase, but I wasn’t hitting the gear and definitely wasn’t making up any ground. Mile four was 8:33, and it really needed to be 8:00. So I guess plan B was to break 50:00.
I ran mile 5 in 7:57, which again was about half a minute slower than last year. I remembered finishing the 2021 race with a pebble in the bottom of my shoe, and that said shoe had come untied close to the finish. Wanting to avoid that problem, I wore my Torins instead of the Escalantes. The Escalantes are more of a race shoe, definitely lighter than the Torins, and while for some reason I think the switch shouldn’t make this much of a difference, maybe it was the shoes?
I was at 46:18 for five miles, and again math wasn’t in my favor to break 50:00. Even downhill and kicking, my top speed wasn’t going cut it. I gave it all I could, but my finishing time was 50:39. Two minutes slower than last year, and five minutes slower than Peter.
After walking it off a bit and getting some more water, I went back to cheer on others. In 2021 Katie and Darrel had a sprint to the finish, but Darrel got faster this year. Katie’s time was almost the same as last year, but she had a lot of speed at the end – I went out to run it in with her and she smoked me on the way to the finish line!
This was an okay race, even if I didn’t meet any of the goals I was looking for. I wish I could repeat the circumstances and determine if it was the shoes, or just me feeling the effects of the marathon at the end of May. I think I’ll use the Escalantes for road races the rest of the season, just to be safe!
BEAR SWAMP RUN RACE SUMMARY: Distance: 5.6 miles Time: 50:39 Pace: 9:03 Overall Finish: 26/42 Age Group: 4/7 CVR Points: 86.4100
For my first race, post-marathon, I chose one almost literally in my back yard: the Birdland 5K at North Branch Park, sponsored by Onion River Outdoors.
The marathon left me with a painful IT band and lower right leg inflammation – more accurately, training for the marathon started these problems – so I took some time to recover with low, easy milage. The Capital City Stampede, a 10K in town, was on June 11, but I didn’t have the desire to push my recovery to race only two weeks later. Besides, the Birdland was a new entry into the CVR Race series, and I hoped holding off and running on comfortable ground would lead to big points.
I learned what the route was in talking with Jeremy from ORO at a shoe demo a few weeks earlier. Or so I thought. I ran the course about two weeks before the race and the mileage came up quite a bit short, but I looked more closely at the map and found the real route. I took another practice run on Monday before and felt good about the race. I ran it in about 37 minutes without killing myself on a humid day, and figured I could cut at least two minutes off that under race conditions.
Throughout the week I was monitoring the registration list. Numbers were quite low, and as far as I could tell I was the only CVR member in my age group who was registered. I was already envisioning my hundred-point performance!
There had been rain the night before the race. I wasn’t sure how mucky the trails would be, but they drain quite well. The temperature was in the mid 50s, which is just about perfect. It was breezy, but that wouldn’t be a problem in the woods.
I live only a third of a mile from the race start, so I used the distance as a little warmup jog. As I was going out the door I saw Peter Lucyx ride by on his bicycle. This was an unwelcome site, as he’s one of the two fastest men in my age category. He’s not really a trail runner, and he hadn’t pre-registered, so I was a little surprised he entered. It turns out he’s pretty competitive and was also hunting points.
At the registration I also saw Cris Cote, another 50-59 male CVR member. He’s not as fast as Peter, but does a lot of trail running. I figured I could be competitive with both given my familiarity with these trails.
There were several other friends entered, Katie along with Matt, Kim and Tara from Runders. Darrel’s wife Cheryl was also there, while Darrel was off running up Mount Washington. It wasn’t a bit CVR presence, but a good group of friends to run with. In total there were approximately 45 entrants, many of whom signed up that morning.
The race started in a little field area near the River Path trail in the park, and followed that trail for maybe a quarter mile. The crowd thinned out some by the time we hit Hermit Thrush Hill, the first climb. This is a mountain bike trail with a lot of switchbacks, so it’s steep but not incredibly so. We gained 200 feet over the next 1/3 mile. As I reached the trail I was running behind a young woman who was going just fast enough that I didn’t feel compelled to try to pass on these windy, skinny bits. About halfway up there was a good spot and it seemed like the right time to make the pass.
I could see Tara not far ahead of me, and figured it would be a good race if I stayed with her. Given this was a 5K, it was my goal to not walk any of the uphill, but my body disagreed. There were a couple of steeper switchbacks that I took a little break on. Tara ahead of me and the young woman behind me were staying in pretty much the same relative position.
At the top of this trail, we took a left hand turn on to Barred Hill Boulevard, a/k/a the low road, for a half mile flat stretch to the next climb. I wasn’t feeling speedy on this stretch, and lost some ground to Tara, but kept my lead on the young woman behind me.
The next turn was onto Roll Call, one of the first mountain bike trails that was built in the park. It’s a little longer and a little less steep than Hermit Thrush, but still I was frustratingly unable to push myself. Tara was still a bit in my sights, but getting further away. I still wasn’t losing any ground, so that was good.
The top of Roll Call is a false summit for the race, as the course continued onto Sapsucker, with another 75 feet of elevation gain. After that, though, hoo boy. Such a fun, flowy downhill, with a couple of bridges and some bermy turns. It’s the highlight of this course.
By now Tara was nowhere to be seen, nor was the young lady chasing me. I heard a guy catching up, though, so I was prepared to be passed. But I heard him talking to someone else, and I guess he slowed down. Maybe it was because I was running faster now. In any case, he never caught me.
At the bottom of Sapsucker we took a left-hand turn on to Pileated Pass, a/k/a the high road. Now we were back on trails I’ve run a hundred times. The high road finishes at the low road, which we followed to the exit onto Cummings Street. It’s well-used and not super technical, other than a few roots that you need to keep your eye on. I was feeling good and running fast, but not super fast. With nobody to chase or keep ahead of, the need for speed was all in my head. Once on Cummings, it was all flat back to the River Path and the finish. I pushed as much as I could, and finished in 33:07.
On the one hand, this was faster than my loose goal of 35 minutes. On the other hand, it felt slow. And it particularly felt slow when I saw Peter at the finish line and learned that he had run the thing in 28-something. This was not a points bonanza for me after all. I did finish a couple of minutes ahead of Cris, though, who’s legs were less responsive than mine this day.
After chatting with friends a bit, I did a cooldown by running back to meet Katie. She was treating an injury and so walked the race with our friend Natalie and her friend Anne Marie. I met them with about half mile to go, and walked briskly back to the finish with them.
It was a fun race, and ORO did a good job, especially considering this was the first time they’ve held this event. I was a bit disappointed with my finish, as historically I’ve done better on trail races than road races. With a little time to reflect, I think maybe it was too soon after the marathon to expect a top performance. Still, it was fun, and I probably would never have run the fantastic Sapsucker trail had I not entered this race.
Two and a half years after I signed up, with my initial relay plans kiboshed and multiple delays due to the (still ongoing) Covid pandemic, the day finally came: Vermont City Marathon. Initially this was supposed to be a buddy relay with my friend Brock. When he couldn’t make it, I turned it into the goal race for my first marathon.
Happy I did it. Happy it’s over!
I need to acknowledge that this blog was set up to capture the trials and tribulations of race training, and I was unable to do that for this race due to time limitations. It feels like a miss. Perhaps I will do a recap in the coming weeks, if only to preserve for my own memories.
After twelve weeks of committed training, which simultaneously seemed too long and too short, last week’s taper found me somewhere between “ready as I’ll ever be” and “this will have to do.” I felt physically prepared to run the 26 miles, but less prepared to “race” that distance. I was dealing with IT issues on my left knee, and “inflammation” (undiagnosed pain) in my lower right leg. I’ve dealt with both before, and figured they would be manageable with knee wraps, compression, and sufficient ibuprofen.
Sometimes I don’t set goals other than “get to the end” for races at a new distance, but this time I gave myself a stretch goal of four hours, which would require a 9:09 pace. That was the A goal. The C goal was indeed to get to the end, which I figured could be done in about 4:30, a good long run pace of 10:18 per mile. The B goal was somewhere in-between. In my mind I was thinking 4:10.
At no point during my training did I have a long run where it felt like I’d be able to sustain a 9:09 pace, so this was truly an “if everything clicks into place” goal. I wanted to put myself into position to go for it if I was feeling it on the day. And a few days before the race I saw a compelling video explaining how a negative split plan would do just that.
The negative split plan said to run a little slower than goal pace in the first half, when your body is not yet operating at top efficiency, and make up for it in the second half with all that energy you’ve preserved. As an added bonus, passing all those people who went out too fast will give a psychological boost. I was sold.
The VCM course has been shortened to a 13.1-mile loop to be traversed twice. The loop itself has two distinct portions, the south subloop that goes down to Oakledge Park and back to downtown, and the north subloop that goes up to Leddy Park and back to the start finish area at Waterfront Park. Both subloops are nearly the same distance, making for four discreet quarters of the race.
My plan was to run the quarters in 9:20, 9:10, 9:00 and 9:05 paces, which would get me right around the four hour goal. The second half still seemed ambitious, but the plan was to at least set myself up to go for it in the first half, and then see how it all played out.
Running from Burlington certainly hampered my normal pre-run routine. I got up at 4:00 a.m. to have breakfast, and I did some foam rolling on my legs to work out any tightness that might hinder my running. Then Katie and I drove the 40 miles to Burlington.
We arrived about half an hour before the 7:00 a.m. start time, but also had to use the port-a-potties before the race. And the lines were loooong. It literally took 20 minutes to get into the can. As we neared the front of the line, I heard someone remark how the start was getting close, and her friend said “I’m in the relay, and I’m not running the first leg, so it’s not a problem.”
OK, if you’re not running the first leg, why aren’t you waiting for all the marathoners to go before using the bathroom? As it turns out, by the time I was finished I found myself getting in my warmup run by fairly sprinting to the start line, with Katie right behind me. I literally got to my corral as it was inching forward to the start. And then we were running!
Running slowly at first, due to the crowds. “Don’t go out too fast,” was not only not a problem, it wasn’t really a possibility. Between the relay teams and the full marathon participants, there were approximately 2,000 runners, and the streets were filled. People streamed far ahead and far behind me.
We started from Waterfront Park, then zigzagged up Maple Street before a stretch down Flynn Avenue. I was using the RaceJoy app on my phone to allow others to track my progress. RaceJoy gave updates every mile: last mile split, average pace, estimated finish time. The first mile split was slow; I don’t remember what RaceJoy said, but Strava has it at 9:42. RJ said my estimated finish time was 4:13. No worries, plenty of time to make that up.
The second, third and fourth miles got progressively faster as the crowd thinned out and I hit my stride. I was hitting my target goals per mile as we meandered through the neighborhood south of Oakledge. On the way I crossed paths with my friend Darrel, who was running the first mile of the five-person relay, and who was about 3/4 of a mile behind me. We would meet a couple more times during the race.
Mile five I actually made up some time with a sub-9:00 mile. RaceJoy informed me that my target time was now 4:07, which was within shouting distance of my goal. The course hugged the edge of Lake Champlain on the way back to Main Street, then we had the only significant climb of the loop, up Main to Church Street.
Katie was waiting at the top of Main Street with a backup knee wrap if needed, which it was not. She ran with me along Church Street shouting encouragement all the way. It was fun to run along Church Street, which is usually a busy pedestrian thoroughfare with shops and restaurants, but at 8:00 a.m. was filled with lots of runners and those cheering us on.
Feeling OK on Church Street
The north subloop goes from Church to Cherry, to Battery Street. Battery Street was the notorious climb on the old course, but on this one we entered at the bottom of Cherry Street, which is at least two-thirds of the way up the hill. I’m sure this was disappointing to some, but I was okay with it.
From Battery Street there’s a little jog through Battery Park, then the course follows North Street for two miles. This is the blandest part of the course, standard suburbia on a commercial thoroughfare. Good crowd support, though.
Things got more interesting again when we reached the Lakewood Neighborhood. I had been looking forward to this, because my friend Kiersten lives down there and normally has a maple syrup stand set up in front of her house. I handed out maple syrup, and then got to play T-Rex, in the 2018 race, and it was a lot of fun. Alas, probably due to Covid safety, there was no maple syrup stand this year.
I suppose I should talk a little about my nutrition plan. I was carrying 1.5 liters of water in my Camelback pack, plus some Gu packets, plus some Shot Bloks, plus a couple of Untapped maple syrup packets. I knew warming temps could be a recipe for cramping, so I had salt sticks with me. There were aid stations approximately every two miles, and my plan was to take Gatorade at every aid station to replenish the electrolytes. I had hydrated heavily in the preceding two days. I thought this was a good plan.
Back to the race. The Lakewood detour was a mile long, with great crowd support and even a hard rock band jamming out. On the way out of the neighborhood I heard Darrel shouting “go Joe” as he was heading in. It was back to North Avenue for a short while, before turning down toward Leddy Park, where we would meet up at the bike path for the run back to the start/finish line. Entering Leddy Park, a woman on a bike was clearing the path for a hand cyclist. “Backpack, move to your right!” That was me. The woman in front of me was fairly oblivious. The guide bike went past her, but she didn’t move. The hand cyclist yelled “on your right” as she was attempting to pass on the left. That was not the correct instruction, a mistake I make fairly regularly.
My splits after the hill had been in the 9:20 range, which was still slower than my now-target pace of 9:10 miles. I decided it would be okay to hit the bathroom in Leddy Park so I could stop thinking about having to pee. It took a couple of minutes, but I was refreshed and ready to go. It was two and a quarter miles back to the start-finish line, where I met Katie again, got a kiss for good luck, and headed out for the second lap.
My last couple of miles of the first half were done at a 9:30 pace. I finished the half in a little over 2:06, which was at least three minutes too slow. Maybe a minute of that was due to the bathroom break. But it didn’t feel like I was going to be getting a lot faster the rest of the way, certainly not the sub-9:00 pace that I would need to break four hours. So this was now a Plan B race.
Things were going okay, though slower still, as I again raced down Flynn Avenue. RaceJoy was telling me I was on pace for a 4:12 race, which wasn’t bad for the B goal. I was noticing the signs, and thought to myself that the “smile if you peed a little” sign was funny the first ten times or so, but it was less funny when a lot of people were waving it. There were other fun signs: “tap for a speed burst,” “never trust a fart after mile 20,” and my favorite, “you think you’re tired? I have to hold this sign for five hours!”
There were signs of encouragement for individual runners, and a lot of music, particularly drums. There was a big drum group on Maple Street, which we passed four times, and another great ensemble on Battery Street. Plus countless others playing the bongos or in smaller groups. It was very festive.
Entering the South Cove neighborhood, I someone in the crowd yelled to a friend, “Look at you! Mile 16 and you look completely fresh!” The runner in question was a relay runner, part of a five-person team, and was only three miles into his portion of the race. Of course he looked fresh!
As another aside, one thing I noticed is that I was surrounded by a lot of relay runners. They all started after the full marathoners, of which there were over 1,300. And since most of them were running faster than the marathoners, I was getting passed constantly by relay runners. It was a bit unsettling, if only because I usually like to be aware of the other racers around me to gauge how I’m doing, but the marathoners were few and far between.
Back in South Cove, shortly after the fresh guy passed me, the trouble started. Somewhere after mile 16 my right groin leg seized up with a painful cramp. This brought me to an immediate stop. I stretched my leg and limped slowly trying to make the pain go away. I took a salt stick and drank some water. Soon I was able to start jogging again.
As we looped back up to get to the bike path, I noticed that almost all the runners coming the other direction behind me were wearing marathon bibs. I thought that was strange, but then noticed they were surrounding the 4:30 pacers. So that’s where they all were! I wasn’t happy to see them, but noted that they were almost a mile – probably eight minutes – behind me. That had me still safely in the 4:15 range if I could keep some semblance of a running speed.
For the most part I was doing that as I ran past the beach in Oakledge Park, and along the bike path headed north. The app reminded me of my slowing pace, then suddenly I heard a cheer – Katie had used a feature on the app to send encouragement. That was fun! But I didn’t get a time update at mile 18. After running well past the mile marker, I pulled out my phone and noticed that the app had stopped tracking me. I failed to get it restarted, then stopped in a shady spot to give it a try, but it was asking me to log in again.
I probably spent over a minute on this, which cost me time. But on the other hand, I told myself that the rest would pay dividends down the road. I finally gave up on the app, figuring folks who were following me would just have to get an update when I finished.
It wasn’t that I was super inclined to push the pace now that I was 3/4 of the way into the race, but whenever I did try to speed up I felt threatening twinges in my muscles. I decided that it was now a matter of getting to the end instead of worrying about time. That included walking some of the steeper sections, like the portion coming up Maple Street that zigged to the midway point at Main and Church.
I ran when I hit Main Street, as that’s where all of the relay people were waiting. I saw Darrel for a third time, this time waiting with his wife Cheryl for leg four of the race. (Darrel ended up running 20 miles of the marathon, either by himself or accompanying teammates.) Katie was a bit further up the hill. She ran up the hill along side of me, then all the way down Church and onto Cherry. I am pretty sure she was moving faster than me at this point. Finally she gave me a kiss and sent me on my way for the last six miles.
Feeling Less OK on Church Street
The North Avenue stretch was more of a slog than before. I was fully exposed to the sun, which by now was high in the sky, and the temperature was over 70 degrees. More than a few of us were taking walking breaks as the road gradually climbed. I tried to make up some time as I hit the first downhill, but my muscles warned me against it. I took an orange slice at the next aid station, then water and Gatorade. I took another water cup and poured it on my head.
Shortly thereafter I returned to the Ledgewood neighborhood. A woman was handing out popsicles, which I started to decline before deciding to take one. What the hell, it’s part of the VCM experience. It was mango. Not my first choice, but not bad.
Shortly thereafter I returned to the Ledgewood neighborhood. A woman was handing out popsicles, which I started to decline before deciding to take one. What the hell, it’s part of he VCM experience. It was mango. Not my first choice, but not bad.
Further down the road, there was a woman with a hose spraying runner as they went by her house. Still in need of cooling down, I ran under the water. My leg immediately seized up again, bringing me to another stop.
I would have taken another salt stick, but I had already used my last one somewhere between the previous cramp and now. There was nothing to be done other than stretch, walk it out, and run slowly. The walking sections were coming more frequently. I had another cramp about a mile later, in Leddy Park. As I was walking this one out, a group of runners passed me. The 4:30 pace group. This made me sad.
It continued much the same after I exited the park and returned to the bike path. Others were obviously having similar issues, and I actually passed a few people even as the relay runners continued to stream by me. A woman was shouting encouragement, “Just two miles to go! You got this!” We passed a few other people shouting that only two miles remained. I said to the guy running next to me, “They’ve been saying two miles to go for the last half mile.” “They’re lying,” was his grim reply.
I had notions of pushing to run the last two miles to try to catch the 4:30 group, but my body would have none of it. I stopped at the final aid station and had two cups of water. At this point, my Camelback was nearly dry.
Gutting out on the home stretch
With about a mile to go I managed to start running a decent pace, and was able to hold on to that the rest of the way. I was passed by a relay runner who for a moment looked like Katie from behind. A short while later, a woman walking the opposite direction said, “less than two miles to go, for real?” I said I sure hoped so; by my measure there should only be about half a mile left. Not Katie was happy to hear that.
We approached another woman who was off to the side, stretching out a cramp. She said she was going to try to run the rest of the way in with us, but she was unable to do so. Not Katie pulled away from me, but as I neared the finish Real Katie was waiting on the side of the bike path for me. She came out and ran beside me, shouting words of encouragement the whole way.
As we approached the chute to the finish line, Katie pulled off to the side. The chute was 100 yards long, I estimate, with throngs of people on both sides shouting to us to finish strong. As I entered the chute I saw an old guy in front of me, about 80 years old by the looks. I made it my goal to pass him before the finish, and I did with a few yards to spare.
Take THAT old man!
The finish line clock read 4:35, but I had crossed the start line a few minutes into the race. My official time was 4:31:35. This is in line with what I figured I could do on an easy long run. Ironically, I might have avoided cramps and been a few minutes faster had I not been trying to reach a goal for this race.
Post race, I grabbed my medal and some water and walked painfully around the park with Katie. At one point we wandered toward the food tent, but I was suddenly feeling nauseous and had to sit. Then the cramps hit again. This time my entire lower right leg seized up. At that point Katie decided to seek out some EMTs. They returned a few minutes later with some ice for my cramps. I believe they were evaluating me for signs of heat stroke, but apparently were satisfied that I wasn’t in that kind of trouble.
So the race didn’t go quite as I had planned, but I find that races rarely do. I have many lessons learned, but this post is already way too long, so I’ll save that for another day. I am glad I ran the race and gutted through to the end. Will I run another marathon? I am pretty sure. Will I run a lot of them? Probably not. Will I run VCM again? Probably, but maybe not next year so I can do other things.
Ideally I would have started writing about this training plan a while back, but life y’know.
I’ve written many times about my plans to run the half-and-half relay at the Vermont City Marathon. The first attempt was postponed due to Covid-19, then I deferred twice, the second time because my running partner Brock had a medical issue and wasn’t cleared to run.
Well, he’s still not cleared, so I decided I would run the whole thing myself. I was pretty confident that I would be able to switch my registration, so I signed up for a free twelve-week plan through Strava, which started in early March. Now I am 10 1/2 weeks and nearly 400 miles in to the plan. So buckle up, we’ve got some catching up to do!
Actually, I’m not going to go into a lot of gory details. It’s been an interesting learning experience – an interesting experience in general – to follow a training plan for the first time. In the past I’ve gone with some vague notion of what I thought I needed to do to prepare for a race. That mostly meant mileage goals, though I did manage to slide in some speed work every year or two.
This plan incorporates a mix of base building, speed work, and long runs, along with rest and recovery time. I’ve actually decreased the number of runs per week in following this plan, often because the workouts are taxing and, you know, I need the rest time!
I’ve enjoyed the speed work, and the long runs have been great for working on the race day plan. What will I wear? What is the nutrition plan? I don’t have the latter worked out just yet, but I am honing in on it. I’ve got so little experience with really long runs, however, that the marathon will by necessity include a little experimentation.
In terms of what to wear, much of it will be dictated by the weather. We don’t have a forecast for May 29 yet, but in recent years it’s been pretty warm. Luckily, the past week or so has been unseasonably warm, all the better for heat acclimation training.
The other consideration for what to wear is pain and injury mitigation. One unwanted side effect from my long runs has been pain on the bottoms of my feet. Early in the training cycle, this was starting at around eight miles, but now it’s more like eighteen miles. That’s still not ideal for a 26-mile race, but it’s improving. I’ve been trying different shoes to see if one model is better than the others. It’s not definitive, but I may end up going with my Vihos, which are supposed to be my cheap mileage-eaters. My feet really love them, though. The Escalantes are out, and the Torins, which have more cusion than the Vihos, are still in contention. But I think it’s going to be Vihos.
For the past few weeks I’ve also been experiencing pain in my right lower leg – shades of early 2020 – along with left IT band soreness. I’ve dealt with both in the past, and don’t really think of these as injuries, but they require management. I’ve been using knee wraps, compression socks, and ibuprofen with varying levels of success. Working on form helped me two years ago, but I feel like my form is good and my cadence is way up, so maybe that’s not the miracle cure. Rest probably is, but that’s not an option. I have been trying to minimize hills, as running downhill seems to have the biggest impact on my knees.
With less than two weeks to go, I am feeling pretty good about the race. I believe I should be able to finish in under 4:30 with some ease, as that’s above a ten-minute mile pace. Most of my easy long runs have been at that pace or faster. I told my training plan that I was going for 4:00, which is a 9:10 pace. To be honest, there hasn’t been a long run yet where I haven’t thought, “I don’t see myself running this fast for 26 miles.”
The good news is that I have no expectations. I’m not going to win any prizes for getting under 4:00, so I will listen to my body. Top priority is getting to the end in reasonably good shape. If everything clicks, I may be able to reach my top goal, but ultimately it’s all about having a good time and learning from the experience.
Back in 2019, when I first started running and I didn’t know any other runners, figuring out a race schedule was easy. I just looked at the CVR race schedule and ran what I could. Three years on I have not only several friends who are running a variety of races, but the social media algorithms suggesting even more.
Bryan (who I don’t know), and the Runders crew: Matt, Kim, Katie, Joe, Darrel. Photo by Darrel.
Now race planning literally requires a spreadsheet. I need to keep track of dates and conflicts with other races, or training requirements, or baseball games? How much does the race cost? Will I have travel expenses? I want to hit a core of CVR races to compete in the annual series, but I also want variety. A mix of road and trail races. A 10K here, a half marathon there, maybe throw a backyard ultra in there somewhere.
Between friend suggestion and research rabbit holes, my wish list is filling up quickly. Everything looks fun, I want to do them all!
One race that my friends knew about, but that I stumbled upon by myself, is the Sleepy Hollow Mountain Race. My employer had our annual holiday party at the Sleepy Hollow Inn in Huntington, Vermont. In looking at the website to find directions (and to learn about the Nordic skiing and mountain biking), I stumbled across this race. Not surprisingly, my Runderachievers friends already knew about it. It’s a 10K+ race with three climbs that total 1,400 feet. As a trail race in April, the only guarantee is that the conditions could be anywhere from completely dry to completely snow covered.
As it turns out, a week before the race the snow was mostly melted away and the course was starting to dry up. But then a late-spring snow covered things up again. On race day the white stuff was gone, but it left the lasting impact of some wet and muddy terrain. All the better for the “muddiest finisher” competition, though I was hoping to not be a candidate for that.
Given the uncertain conditions and the unknown trails, I really didn’t set a target finishing time. I had a vague notion of 1:15 based on snooping previous results, but it’s hard to say what kind of conditions they faced. My only plan was to give it my best effort.
Katie was excited to sign up for this race, so she joined me. Our Runerachiever friends Matt, Kim and Darrel all were signed up, as were a few others I knew. The competition really set my goals. In particular my friend Tom was in the field. I had finished ahead of him at the Kaynor’s Sap Run, but he put up a good time in the Paul Mailman 10 miler while I was out of town, so beating him was no given.
In total there were 220 folks at the starting line. After a short flat dash, the climbing started almost immediately. Matt took off fast and I never saw him again. Darrel also hustled past me at the start, but I overtook him a few minutes later on the climb. The ground was fairly dry on the flat part, but there was a mud bog just as things started to get steep, and a woman in front of me wiped out just a couple minutes into the race. I guess it was going to be like that.
The first climb was up mostly double track ski trails, to the high point of the race about 8/10 of a mile in. After ringing the bells at the peak and a brief plateau, where a course monitor in a freaky gingerbread costume was cheering us on, we began our first descent. This was very steep and muddy, and lots of racers were taking things slowly. I am fairly comfortable going downhill and was moving faster than most, but I was still fairly tentative, as I did not wish to land on one of the big rocks in the trail. I passed Kim going down, then Cris Cote went flying by me without a care in the world. After the race he told me that his philosophy is, “I can miss that rock if I fall.”
After a bit things started to level out. We were still moving downhill, but a much shallower grade on wide ski trails. It was fast going. The course turned onto another wide trail heading back uphill at 1.75 miles. Quite a few people were walking this part, and I joined them for much of it. With over 4 miles to go and not much idea of what was to come, this didn’t seem like a great time to expend a lot of energy. Less than half a mile later we took a left hand turn onto another flat part. This stretch swooped around the side of the mountain, and was quite beautiful.
That all ended at the 2.6 mile mark. The next stretch was very steep, with a few rock scrambles. There was no running this portion, it was a mountain climb. I recognized the disadvantage of being in the middle of the pack, as the 100 runners in front of me created some treacherous footing in the muck at times. Part way up I heard Kim say, “I finally caught you.” We climbed the rest of the way together, until things leveled out and she scooted past me.
I was surprised to see the gingerbread person again, seeming more like a hallucination this time. And then the cowbells reappeared. I was not aware that we would be running over the highest point a second time during the race. Shortly thereafter came a technical downhill stretch, where I caught my toe and stumbled briefly but managed to stay upright. Then we were back on ski trails for the next mile.
It was fast running, and I overtook a few people at this point. I had a brief notion that I would be able to stick with Kim, but that turned out to not be the case. She pulled away and I was left racing with strangers. At 4.3 miles we passed through the start/finish area. It was 51 minutes in and I saw a guy crossing the finish line. He was not the first place finisher. I still had two miles to go. Some of these people are built differently.
I slowed down to drink a cup of water, then was back to running. A quarter mile later I reached the final climb. This was shorter but still pretty steep, once again narrow single track that was more of a mountain hike. There was a woman on my heels who I offered to let pass, but she said she was happy with my pace. We caught up to another guy who I didn’t recall seeing before. Things leveled out and widened a bit, and we all shuffled position. One other woman went bombing past me at the top.
From here on out it was more fun fast downhill on wide ski trails for another 3/4 of a mile. I passed one woman and caught another one at the very bottom, but just past the six mile mark was one final hill and she went back ahead and pulled away. Going up the hill there were people shouting their encouragement. “This is the last hill!” “You’re almost there!” I kind of wanted to walk, but these people wouldn’t let me, so I pushed on.
As I approached the finish I could see that the clock read 1:13:something. I hadn’t been giving much thought to my time, but I was going to break 1:15; I crossed the line in 1:13:40. I had never seen Tom, and ended up finishing over a minute in front of him. Based on those two benchmarks, this was a success!
I went back to the gathering area to grab my coat and Katie’s, then went back to the finish line to cheer her in. I went to the top of the hill and saw her coming up. After chiding her for walking, I snapped a couple photos then ran back to the finish line to get a shot of her crossing. She came in at a very respectable 1:23.
The after party was nice, with a vegan-friendly burrito bar. It was fun to recap the race with friends old and new. Everyone agreed that the first downhill was the worst part of the race, followed by the steep third climb (up the second hill). I was pleased with my performance. Ultimately I would have liked to walk less on the second climb, but I am also pleased to have maintained the discipline to not overdo it when I wasn’t sure what was still to come. So I gave it my best, but there’s also room for improvement.
I was ambivalent about this race in the weeks leading up.
Feeling strong at the three mile mark
On the one hand, this is an “old friend” race; in this case, the first 10K I ever ran, back in 2019.
On the other hand: it’s an hour from Montpelier, gas is really expensive, it was supposed to be snowy and windy, the road the race is on would be a mess.
On the other other hand, for all of the reasons above it could be a good opportunity to pick up race series points.
On the other other other hand, it didn’t really fit in with my current training plan (which I have yet to write about). I was supposed to do a longer run. But the plan said, “or you can run a race.” So it also does fit in with the plan.
Anyway, I wasn’t really planning on running this race until Katie and I went to the CVR Annual Dinner the Thursday beforehand and everybody was talking about going to the race. Katie was interested, and suddenly I was feeling some FOMO. So on Friday we signed up. And Saturday I spent some time researching how fast I thought I could run this race.
As mentioned up front, the last time I ran this event (the 2020 and 2021 races were cancelled due to Covid) was my first-ever 10K. Even at that, I came in expecting to run a five-mile race. When I realized it would be 20% longer than that, my only goal was to have enough energy to get to the end. I had literally never run more than 4.5 miles before that day.
So my 1:04 for that race (which was somehow still the only “live” 10K road race I’ve ever run) wasn’t much of a benchmark for a target. I looked at the results of some of my friends on Facebook, as well as my virtual 10K times from 2020, and decided that 54:00 would be a good goal, and hopefully better than my virtual PR of 53:30. That would require an average pace of 8:36, which would be heavily dependent upon the road conditions. Given the hilly nature of the course, I figured I needed to be sub-8:00 on the downhills, 8:30 on (what passes for) the flat parts, and to maintain the effort on the uphills without a clear idea of how that would translate to pace.
The weather on race day was pretty nice in Montpelier, but we drove through some decent snow on Bolton Flats (not unusual). The snow was supposed to clear out by the time we reached Westford, but some flakes were holding on. We got there in plenty of time to get a good parking spot and get a mile warmup in. I found the roads to be in surprisingly good shape, with some soft spots the cars had to navigate but plenty firm for a human runner.
109 runners toed the line for the 11:00 a.m. start, 20 of whom were CVR friends. The start is at the top of a hill, and the first 1/3 mile is all downhill. Things were moving fast, and my pace was near 7:00 minutes per mile. When things flattened out I was still in the 8:00 range. This is 5K pace, but didn’t feel it, so I went with it. I finished the first mile in 7:50, which was pretty fast.
There is always a great sorting-out in the first few minutes of a race, and soon you find who your people are. The first climb starts at mile 1.3, and goes steep for 1/4 mile and then less steep for the next 1/4 mile. I passed a few people at that time, and my friend Cris Cote moved ahead of me. He walked some of the climb, which allowed me to stay close, but soon he was running with another friend, Tom Mowatt, about 50 yards ahead.
Beating Tom was one of my goals for this race. I ran out of time to do so at the New Years Eve 5K, but this race is twice as long and I was inching closer already. He’s 10 years older than me, but still a good runner. I was ready for a race.
Not much happened over the next mile and a half. Mile 2 clocked in just after the peak at 8:55. I was around 17 minutes, which was the pace I needed to get in range of my PR. Mile three was a half mile of downhill and a similar half mile of climbing, though not super steep. I made good time on the downhill.
The race leader passed coming back at about 2.5 miles, or 3.5 miles for him. The front of the pack started to trickle by, then there was a steady stream of people as I approached the turnaround. I passed my neighbor Sal at about 2.7 miles (3.3 for him). I was looking out for him, because I figured he was the fastest CVR runner in my age group, and the closer I could be to his time, the more points were to be had. I did some math and figured I was on pace for around 90 points, which was a huge improvement from 2019.
Cris and Tom made the turn at the 3-mile mark, and I was shortly after them. I was in a bubble of time by myself, and the volunteer encouraged me. “There’s a nice downhill. You can recover and sprint!” I finished the third mile in 8:21, so I was looking good for something in the 53:00s. After pushing up the hill to the turnaround, the downhill was a relief, though I didn’t totally floor it in order to maintain some strength.
Mile four mirrors mile three, a downhill and a climb. The climb is longer and more gradual going this way. Somewhere, on the flat part near mile 3.5, I caught up to and passed Tom. Cris was pulling away, and in fact had moved ahead of a woman in a purple shirt. Soon I head footsteps behind me. I figured it was Tom, but instead it was another woman named Jessica who I recognized from other races. Frankly I was surprised to discover she had been behind me.
Despite the minor jockeying, the fourth mile was really a lull. Nobody else was gaining on me and I wasn’t really gaining on the women in front of me. (It was also too early to start making that kind of move.) The excitement was cheering on all the other runners coming in the other direction. Perhaps this is why it was by far the slowest mile at 8:42. The half mile of climbing at the end surely contributed.
In reviewing the data, it’s remarkable to me how consistent the effort was. For almost the entire race, my cadence was in the upper 170s and my heart rate was in the low 170s. Maintaining this kind of effort should serve me well in longer races.
The fifth mile was fairly flat at the top, and then downhill. I may have inched closer to purple lady, but literally only inches. The split for that mile was 7:56. I wasn’t really doing the math, but I knew I was in good shape to challenge my PR.
At this point I remembered that the training plan for the day was a “fast-finish long run.” I was supposed to run easy for an hour and twenty minutes or so, then run fast for the last ten. I had about ten minutes left to the finish line, so I decided to dial it up a little. Of course, being already five miles into a race, “dialing it up” was not a dramatic change. And then I was faced with that 1/3 mile downhill that we started with, only now it was a 1/3 mile uphill, and pretty steep at that. There was no running fast up that hill. And I really hadn’t made up any ground on purple shirt. That race was lost.
The sixth mile came in at 8:33. Now I was just over 50 minutes with .2 miles to go. I figured if I gave it my all there was an outside chance I could break 52:00, which would shatter my PR. I gave it my all, but there was not enough “all” there, and I crossed at 52:10. There was no disappointment in that number, a PR by nearly a minute and a half, and a full 12 minutes faster than the 2019 race. I also finished ahead of all the club members I was hoping to be competitive with. All in all a great result.
I got some water and jogged back to run in with Katie. This race was a big stretch for her given her training to date. She was due for a slow long run, but this was a bit faster with some walking on the hills. Fortunately she was halfway up the final hill when I saw her, so I didn’t have to climb up that again! She was really strong at the end – I legitimately couldn’t keep up with her – and finished five minutes faster than she had expected. A great race for her, too!
Afterwards we had some cider and cider donuts and chatted with new and old friends for a bit. It was definitely worthwhile to make the effort.
Joe's Running Blog 