Luke - 16

16mi, 1:58:52 (7:25)

Autumn Trails Run, 1st place.

Was going to do a long run with lots of trails/hills anyway, so when I heard Josh Gordon was going to do this as a long run I decided to join him.

We started at the bottom of Fox Hollow and did about a mile on the Rexius bark before heading up. I took it real easy to start, and there were about a dozen people in front of me (there were about 60 people in the race, some doing the 3.5-mile course, some doing 6, some doing 10, and the rest of us doing 16). I'd told Josh before the start that I'd be hitting the hill hard and then settling down because I always feel better when I do that (I learned this in August). Once the hill started I sped up and started passing people, getting into first a little before halfway up Fox Hollow. We took the back way to the start (crossing a stream) so I didn't get a traditional split, but I think it was about an 8-minute effort, which is fairly fast. After Fox Hollow we got on Ridgeline, and Josh and this other guy Mike caught up to me pretty quick. We settled into a good pace and pretty much ran the rest of the way together, me in front, then Josh, then Mike. We talked intermittently, none of us racing, but still kept up a nice pace. At about 45 minutes there was an aid station so we stopped for not quite a minute and had a gel and some water. After the aid station we were retracing our steps so we passed all the other people doing 16 miles; the first guy we passed was 3-4 minutes behind us.

About 9 miles in we took the turnoff for the butte, but instead of going to the very top like I usually do, we went around the back. This portion had some fairly steep downhills, and I knew we'd be coming back the same way. At the turnaround, though, there was another aid station and we stopped for some Gatorade. We headed back up and some of the steeper sections were a bit slow but we were all doing pretty well anyway. We once again saw the next guy as we came back; he was about 6 minutes behind us.

Once we got back to the trail I'm used to I picked it up a bit, as it was a fun downhill section and I of course know that trail really well. I put a bit of a gap on the other two for a couple minutes but they caught right up once we got back to Fox Hollow. At that point there was one trail loop left and then it was down Fox Hollow to the finish...my legs were feeling a bit tired but I kept leading. I'd told Josh I'd be bombing it down Fox Hollow because it's fun; he said he'd be running like an old man because it was a bit muddy and he wanted to be safe. I took off when we got there but I didn't put a ton of distance on him and Mike as I ran a 6:04...I think my legs were feeling the distance behind me a bit. From the bottom it was less than a quarter-mile to the finish, and I could actually hear Josh and Mike gaining on me. I was able to speed up and hold them off though, coming through about 7 seconds in front of Josh and 10 seconds in front of Mike. I'm not sure if the race people realized we'd run the whole way together on purpose, and just thought it was a close race. Our time was a few seconds over 2:00:00 (the time at the top of this post is the time I had on my watch--I stopped it when we stopped for gel and for Gatorade).

For winning I got a comped entry to the next trail race, in December, which I may or may not do, and since there were only 60 people in the race, across 4 distances, maybe 10 age groups, and both sexes, everyone got an age group medal. There was chili, pizza, and brownies there in addition to the bagels, bananas, Gatorade, and stuff like that that's always at races, but I just had pizza and Gatorade. And only one slice of pizza...I guess I don't feel like eating as much after 16 miles as I do after a 5k.

Went home and had a Sleigh'r in a hot shower...very nice.