Oh man... what did I get myself into? On a lark I signed up for the USATF Pacific NW Masters Cross Country Championships.
Last time I checked cross country runners are f'ing FAST. Martin on the other hand? Not so much.
Still, the Seattle Running Club (the running club that I joined) has a small contingent of folks that enter cross country meets every fall and so I figured I would give it a go. Besides, this race is very close to home, gotta like that. It's supposed to be a 2 km loop in Woodland Park and Masters run this loop three times. How hard can 6 km be? See below.
Okay, truth be told I slipped on my way to the toilet (the asphalt parking lot was covered in wet moss). Just trying to keep my streak of falling down at every off-road run I do alive it seems. :(
My goal today was to hopefully post sub 7:00 miles and still enjoy myself. I managed to do the first and in retrospect also did the second but man was I breathing hard out there... my lungs are my weak link for sure.
I got to Woodland Park fairly early as this was my first ever cross country race and I wanted to not be surprised by anything. Since the weather was super I managed to walk the entire course, get my number and then helped Eric Sach set up his tents so that SRC would have a 'home'. Shortly thereafter the new race singlets showed up and I pinned on my number.
After getting all geared up Eric, Win Van Pelt and I jogged one lap to warm up. Then it was time for some last minute sipping of bottles, stretching and what's that you say? Masters need a second number pinned to their backs? Nice. So with 15 minutes before the start I grab my age-specific number and pin it to the back of my singlet. And then we lined up.
GO!
The start was down a hill so of course I took off too fast. At the one mile marker this guy was shouting times and as I passed I think I heard him say, "Six minutes!" Oops. Not that I could have maintained this pace if I wanted.
The field strung out pretty quick and soon I was running with a small pack of guys who looked like they were in their early 50s. After one lap there was a gap behind me and a gap in front of my pack so my goal was to hang with these couple of guys. Over the course of the last two laps I managed to pass about three people and one guy passed me and my 'pack' got reduced to just one person who I could not hang with in the end. I went from being right behind him with one lap to go to about 50' behind with half a lap to go and that's about how we finished.
In my age bracket I stunk up the place but compared to other SRC members I did about as well as I hoped I would which was a nice surprise. If you look at my GPS data below you will see that I started out too fast, slowed down a bit, recovered/sped up some and then died a little toward the end. That's because this is exactly the kind of running I have not been doing. :) But SRC was super supportive and everyone seems so nice. I'm glad I joined this club.
Another nice surprise was seeing Alec Duxbury out there on his cyclocross bike escorting the leaders of each race around the course. I guess his wife is a runner and he's been doing it at this event for years. Good for him and it was fun to chat and catch up.
Here are all the pictures and video.
| Sleep | 6 |
| Waking HR | |
| Body Weight | |
| Body Fat | |
| Breakfast | 5:30 AM - 2 bananas w/almond butter, tea 7:00 AM - 3 Perpetuem Solids, water |
| Lunch | |
| Dinner | |
| Workout Food | 8:30 AM - gel 9:30 AM - gel The hour before the start I sipped off a bottle w/1 scoop HEED and 1 tablet Nuun. |
| Injuries | |
| Therapy | |
| Time of Day | 10:00 AM |
| Workout Type | race |
| Weather | upper 50s, muggy, overcast, dry sky, damp ground, calm |
| Course | 2 km rolling loop mostly on grass with some gravel path, one street crossing and one short section of pavement. |
| Results | 9th - Masters 45-49 [I was last in my age group!] official results |
| Time | 25:12 |
| Distance | 6 km |
| Pace | 6:49 min/mile |
| Equipment | Brooks PureGrit |
| Clothing | Brooks Infinity Short III, SRC singlet, Teko organic SIN3RGI Light Minicrew |
Sounds super fun!!! Way to go. I really like the team aspect of Cross Country.
ReplyDelete@Jeff - it really was fun. I had to laugh at myself for trying to get a draft behind other runners... it doesn't work! :)
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