Race Report: OhioOutside.com Trail Race Series #2 of 3
Saturday, November 14
This race was eventful enough to merit a write-up, even at risk of turning things here into what I vowed they wouldn’t become – a long race account saturated with excessive details and microdramas of personal experience. I’ll try to limit that and provide some observations which may be useful to anyone who tries the final race in the series on December 12.
I entered at the last minute, and with some misgivings, since the race location is (after years of excessive discretionary travel to bike races) farther than I like to drive – ~85 miles round-trip. One of the nice things about running is that events are plentiful enough that you don’t have to go anything like as far to compete, so the impact on budget, schedule, and the environment is much less.
Perhaps what drew me to this race in particular is the fact that it took place at Munroe Falls Metro Park, whose parkway serves as the course for a spring bicycle race series I officiated a total of 20 times from 1998-2002. It’s an outstanding venue that has nonetheless seen quite a few serious crashes over the years, certainly more than you’d expect. I’d often wondered what lies in the woods outside the course, and with the trails likely to be in good shape from the recent dry spell, plus perfect weather on race day, the time seemed right for an excursion beyond the usual travel radius.
Right off the bat after arriving, whom should I see but Mark Gorman, a Cat. 3 road cyclist who once suffered a memorable mishap when he and, as I recall, several others were taken down by a rider with some sketchy (to put it mildly) bike handling “skills.” The crash perpetrator just rode on – I think he eventually won the race – oblivious to the carnage (not to mention anger) in his wake.
Now, there’s no way a single referee can be everywhere on a 1.2-mile course, and I did in fact miss all the excitement, arriving shortly afterward to find Mark, um, rather out-of-sorts. In a case like this, you give the crash victim clipboard, pen, and paper, then have him sit down to describe the incident; if there are multiple victims, you give writing materials to each of them (that’s why I still have 6 mini-clipboards) and send them off in opposite directions. It calms things down by 1) separating everyone; 2) making them concentrate; and 3) allowing them a chance to vent. While you can’t make a decision (e.g., disqualification) based on the resulting statement(s), it all goes in an active file for possible future action. In this case, several other similar reports lead to a brief “counseling session” with the alleged menace to bike race society, after which there were no further problems.
So I just had to remind Mark of this episode: “Hey, I think Lee Runyon [not his real name] is here!”
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Mark, since he runs the web site that is the primary race sponsor (I’d forgotten that), but it didn’t stop there: the whole race staff was made up of bike race people who seemed glad to see me, one of whom I (embarrasingly) didn’t quite recognize at first. “Agh, I thought I'd escaped my misbegotten past!” “Having a flashback?,” someone asked. Well, not quite, but...
[Sigh.]
It’s happened. I’ve degenerated to the level of purely personal reflection. Back to the race.
After packet pick-up, there was enough time for a preview lap, and it’s a good thing, because the course turned out to be anything but “fast and flat,” as claimed at the race website. A series of 30 photographs is also posted there, and they give a good impression of the trail features present, but not the extent of the gradient changes.
After a run-up of ~210 yards across a grass field, the parkway, and a paved parking lot, the course transitioned to a ~2.2 mile trail, which started off mellow enough with a mild rise on a gravel-sand patch, followed by a short dirt/grassy section.
At Beaver Pond, however, came the first of several short-but-fairly-steep pitches, with tree roots (not just a single one here and there, but little networks of them), frequent 6-inch wide/deep gulleys, and an occasional protruding rock. Of course, all these features were present on the corresponding downhill sections too, along with many twists and turns. Finishing off the circuit was a set of old stone stairs, where you turned back toward the start area for the finishing straight after completing a second lap. Add it all up, and I think the descriptor “challenging” would be more appropriate.
I reported this to Paul Heyse, a good, consistent 19:30 5K runner and a newspaper reporter whose coverage of local high school track and cross-country (among other sports) is much appreciated. “Keep an eye on the trail in front of you so you don’t fall, and let the runner immediately ahead keep a decent gap in case he falls,” I said. As it turned out, one eye was about all that Paul had – one of his contacts had slipped out.
On the starting line, more biker trash people: Brian Batke and Tris Hopkins, two very solid Cat. 2s. Brian is a national-class masters competitor, particularly gifted as a climber and time trialist, and Tris isn’t far behind. I dialed back any thoughts of an age-group placing by a spot. The race organizer (Mark) made a few comments about the course, pointed toward the finish, and said something like “It should be clear.” Not really; it was different than the official course map. Here’s a detail map of how the start/finish area is actually set up:
Off we went, and I felt like I did a good job of staying relaxed and letting the fast starters get away (Coach Roy Benson recently wrote a nice article about this). Passing the little hourglass symbol on the map above, I hit the split button on my watch to start the lap timer. There were no mile markers on the course, and they would have been of limited value in any case due to the variation in terrain, so lap times were about the only way to gauge how well energy output was regulated.
Per my instructions to Paul, I made certain to let a small gap remain in front of me once we reached the first gnarly trail section, and sure enough, the guy directly in front of me tumbled hard, but rolled perfectly and popped right back up. If you’re going to fall, that’s how to do it.
No fewer than four runners burst past rather impressively once we reached the hilly parts of that first lap. My reaction was the same as always: ‘If they can keep or increase the gap, there’s nothing I can do about it, if not, I’ll see them again before the finish,’ or to quote Jack Daniels (yet again): “Remember that the finish line is at the end of the race.” And indeed, I caught all of them, plus a few others, on the second lap, when they were looking much less impressive.
At the completion of the first lap, I hit the split button, and thought I saw 17:31. I resolved to be even more careful on second lap, as fatigue began to accumulate, but also since familiarity tends to breed complacency – if you stay vigilant and get through one circuit, it’s only natural to relax a bit as you figure there will be no problem the second time around.
After his tumble, the ‘Fall Guy’ and I more or less stayed together all the way to Heron Pond late in the second lap, where I started to ease away from him. Shortly after that, another guy came up on my shoulder, breathing very heavily. Usually this means a superhuman has just been made, and you expect the person to fade, but given how late in the race it was, I wasn’t so sure. I did start to pull away near the end of the lap, but lost the advantage on the staircase, where any technique I had on the first lap vanished due to fatigue – I must have looked like an old lady as I came down ever-so-carefully, one step at a time, with ‘Heavy Breather’ right on my heels. I was able to open up a gap on the run-in, but misjudged the finish, not realizing that you had to go past it and around a set of cones, then head back – a total distance of ¼ mile. Still, I had a little extra ‘gear’ in the final meters, which was enough to hold off the Fall Guy, but Heavy Breather came past in the last 10 meters or so. My time at the clock timer, which apparently was the finish line, was 37:10.7 (the official results incorrectly give 36:47) – good enough for only 7th of 17 in my age group, which was the biggest overall (as well as highest in quality after 19-24 & 25-29), and 31st of 82 men overall. The total turnout doubled, from 76 to 143, as compared to the first race in the series, when my time would have been good enough for 3rd in age group.
After finishing, I gave my goody bag, with a nicely customized commemorative beer glass and a push-top sports bottle, to the Fall Guy – out of sympathy, gratitude (for his skill), and admiration (for his tenaciousness).
The second lap was turned in 17:27, so at first I though I’d ‘split negative’ (sped up as the race went on), which surprised me somewhat, but once at home, I found the first lap time was actually 17:13, so the first/second lap split ratio was 49.7%/50.3%, or slight positive. Not bad, at least according to this analysis.
Overall, I was really glad just to stay upright throughout the whole race. I’ve done plenty of training on trails just as hilly/gnarly, with shadows/broken sunlight, darkness, snow, and leaves obscuring trail hazards, but there is considerable difference between racing all-out on an unfamiliar trail and training on one you’ve repeated dozens of times.
