We arrived around 3:00 and got our tents set up and started the eating, dressing, preparing water bottles/gels/salt tabs ritual. The course was two 9.3 mile loops, so I only had to carry one water bottle and could leave the other one ready to go at the start/finish. I was feeling nervous about the loops considering how difficult Muleshoe was for me, but in general, I felt much better than I did before Muleshoe. My diet for the day didn't start out great, because I was running around town doing errands on an empty stomach and so kept snacking. Once home, though, I had some carrots and roasted red pepper hummus and a big mango/berry smoothie. At Reveille, I had a few more carrots and hummus as I was feeling a little hungry, and then a big bowl of a fruit salad of mangos, blueberries and strawberries. I think mangos and blueberries are going to be a pre-race regular for me as they've done me well at these last two races.
I had a lot of excited and nervous energy right before the race. Going into this race, I was in first place for the series by a fair amount of time and assuming no catastrophes was fairly confident I could pull out the win. My highest place, though, in any individual race was third place (twice), so I was really hoping to place higher in this particular race. I started out fast, as I tend to do, but this time I held that fast pace for several miles instead of falling off after only a couple. This was exciting, because I felt pretty good. I was in first (of the females) until just before the far aid station when I came down one of the rock outcrops and went to the right and took the three people right behind me with me. I quickly realized there were no markers this way, and the four of us stopped for a good 30 seconds looking around trying to figure out where to go. We finally saw the marker.....right next to where the second place gal was standing, so she bolted up the trail and just like that, I was in second. At the aid station, however, I didn't stop long and jumped back on the trail in front of her. I got, I thought, a good little lead on her there and was feeling better about holding that spot until a mile or so later coming around a switchback, I saw that she was right there again. Another mile and she caught and passed me, and I never saw her again.
Coming in from the first loop to the start/finish aid station, a man and his son who was maybe 11 years old or so were coming in from the 10k at the same time. They took off sprinting down the finish, and everyone was cheering them on when, literally, 10 feet before the timing mat, the boy fell. He didn't even skip a beat, though, and essentially just dragged himself toward and over the finish line. It was a great sight to see. Maybe this will be the one race that I have a decent race photo as I know I was smiling watching them while the finish line camera light was going off.
The second loop was actually pretty good. I didn't even really pay attention to how much mileage was left until I left the far aid station (4.3 miles left from that point), and I had a couple of good bursts throughout. The seemingly random aid station 1.25mi from the start/finish actually turned out to be quite a blessing. It cut the trek out to the far aid station up into two short, easier in the mental aspect segments and assured that I never had to worry about running out of water between aid stations. I also really liked the segment where you passed runners coming back out when you were going in to the start/finish area (and vice-versa). Everyone gave each other a 'good job!' or a 'keep it up!' (one of the reasons I love trail running - the community is so friendly and supportive of each other), and just having more people around increased my energy and adrenalin on these parts, especially in that final stretch.
Somewhere between the far aid station and the last aid station, on one of the rock outcrops, I finally did it. I tripped and nearly face-planted into the rock. I looked down - it looked like a pretty good scrape, but the knee itself was fine, so I got up and kept moving. Today, it's a little tender and swollen, but I'm sure it will heal up within the week - no biggie.
I ended up finishing 2nd out of the females, 15th overall with a time of 3:36:26 (1st lap: 1:36:51, 2nd lap: 1:59:35). I was quite pleased with my second place finish as it made me feel like I earned my overall series winner award a little more. I found out that first place soundly beat me by 22 minutes, so I don't feel so bad about letting her go back at mile 7 or 8. In fact, I'm proud of myself for holding on to first for as long as I did. Maybe next year, I'll be strong enough to hold on to it for the whole race.
In this race, I finally learned how to run a night, summer trail run. There are 4 essential factors that I have found necessary to staying comfortable and being able to run (relatively) fast. These are:
1) TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE HELPFULNESS OF THE AID STATION VOLUNTEERS!! In other races, I would have an idea of what I wanted to do at the aid station: fill my water bottle, take a gel/salt tablets, pour water on my head, drink a cup of gatorade, etc. and even though I'd have volunteers asking me, 'What do you need? What do you need?', I often wouldn't fully articulate myself and would fumble with my gels and water bottle and ultimately spend much more time trying to do everything myself. This time, each time I came to the aid station, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I would start asking for help right as I walked up: 'Could I have water in my water bottle and ice in this bag (see #4)?' while at the same time, grabbing a cup of gatorade to drink or water to pour on my head.
2) CARRY TWO LIGHTS!! The first three races I just wore my 50 lumen Petzl headlamp, and I thought it worked just fine. Knowing that this was going to be another rocky course, however, I borrowed an extra headlamp from a friend and carried that one in my hand just to see if it made that much of a difference. Well, it made a HUGE difference. It doesn't have to be a super special, super bright lamp. Just having a second light at all helped tremendously and one that I could have in my hand to direct exactly where I wanted it without having to turn my head - priceless.
3) SPEED WALK STRATEGICALLY. Don't get me wrong. I walked in all the other races too, but it was pretty much just because I was tired and wanted/needed a break right at the moment in which I started walking. Last night, however, I tried to time my walking a little more strategically. I would walk up the uphills, but I would walk quickly such that it was just slightly slower or possibly the same rate as what I would have been doing at that spot running. I would also walk at the most technical spots on top of those rock outcrops - not much - often just a few steps at a time, but I think doing this both saved me a little energy AND saved me from a couple more face plants that I would have had if I had tried to run all those spots.
4) (This one's just for the gals - sorry guys) PUT A BAG OF ICE IN YOUR SPORTS BRA!! Plain and simple, ice, in your bra, is magical. At the first aid station, I asked for ice to put in my bra and one of the volunteers proceeded to take a pitcher of ice and literally pour it into my shirt. It was so amazingly cold and so amazingly refreshing. For the next few miles, I would feel cold streams of water dripping down my stomach and back. At the start/finish aid station, I asked for more ice and they asked what I wanted to do with it, and when I said I wanted to put it in my shirt, they gave me a plastic bag full of ice. From then on, upon arriving at an aid station, I would pull it out, empty out the water and hand it to someone and ask for more ice. Fellows - it was so nice to have that personal air conditioner that I would even go so far as to suggest looking into a man-zier for your next hot weather race.
It's somewhat unfortunate that it took me to the end of the series to figure all of this out, but I guess the good thing is that I can put them all together for next year's series and maybe have learned a few more trail-running tricks by then too.
For now, I'm going to finally try to get some sleep and let these legs rest a little. So far, so good - no injuries (minus the scrape/bruising on my knee from where I fell) and not really that sore. Often, though, the soreness takes a day to set in, so talk to me tomorrow and we'll see how I feel then. Next up on the docket - Cactus Rose 4x25mi relay. I'm excited and nervous about attempting 25 miles at Bandera. I have a lot of hill and rock training I need to do between now and then, but for right now, I'm going to curl up on the couch with a Harry Potter movie and my congratulatory french fries.
