I don't often dedicate entire blog posts to "my telling" of a race, but I feel it is warranted owing to the utter ridiculousness of the
Continental Divide Trail 10K. I don't think words can do this race justice, but I will do my best. Let's start with the elevation profile:
See all of the straight up and straight down sections... those are not exaggerations... it's not an artifact of the profile being squashed... the course actually does that... with roots and rocks and on a path about as wide as oh, say 3/4 of a person. There is nothing around here comparable.
Before the start of the men's race, the race director gave the following instructions:
If this is your first trail race, you've made a mistake... [insert other ominous statements]... The course is well-marked with orange flags on the trees. There's a flag no less than every 100m or so. In some sections, they're about every 50ft. So, if you go too long without seeing a flag, you're lost, and you should probably back track to the last place you saw a flag. Oh, and there are some switchbacks on the back half of the course. There's barbed wire at the end of one, so don't miss that turn.
So, I figured that I was pretty much screwed. Not only was this my first trail race, but I get lost on out-and-backs in downtown Raleigh. How are you supposed to look for an orange flag on a tree when you are staring down at the ground to make sure you don't trip anyways?!? The men's race was first, and Sean took off with the pack.
The next time I saw Sean, he was doing well, but looked pretty tired (as did every other runner that we saw go by... most looked worse than SK). I didn't know what they had just finished running, but I figured it couldn't have been easy (turns out, I was at the top of the first hill). And, being that Sean is both a much better trail and hill runner than me, I was no longer figuring that I was screwed, I knew I was. However, the next time I saw him, he looked better, in fact everyone looked like they were flying at that point. The last time I saw SK was the finish... and no one looked good... a few guys were even streaked in mud and blood. I finally found Sean, and he told me the course was "brutal". Fantastic...
SK had recovered enough by the start of the women's race to give me some good advice. There was apparently a really steep, somewhat technical downhill section after about 1/2-mile that gave your quads a good beating. The singletrack was pretty narrow, and your feet were at an angle the whole time. The last 1/4-mile before the halfway point and finish were straight uphill, but by the lake was pretty nice... the second half was definitely better than the first. The gun went off, and so did we.
So, I'm running along, making sure not to go out too fast. I get to a downhill section... not too bad... then I get to "the" downhill section (that vertical drop a little before the mile mark). Wow. Ok, so I tried to remember the advice from the trail running magazine and take short quick steps. All of a sudden the woman in front of me loses control and starts slipping down the mountain. I think my eyes were as wide as saucers at this point, luckily someone either grabbed her from the sidelines or she caught a tree or something. Then there was a brief break, before we headed up and up and up (ahhh, this is why Sean looked tired the first time we saw him). Of course, this was "tame" compared to what we'd "run" up later, but at the time I thought it was miserable. There was about 30sec of level ground where you could actually get back to running, and then another huge downhill, at the end of which my quads were shot.
Then came the uphill. I ran up for the first bit... short quick steps... and then I tripped on a root or rock and almost fell off the singletrack. And, it was my right foot with the somewhat inflamed 2nd toe joint, which was only being compounded by the fact that the grade was forcing me to land on it at an angle... my ankle felt AWESOME by the end of the first half. I could see everyone in front of me "hiking". The hill was pretty steep at this point, the roots were pretty big, and the rocks were pretty frequent. We just kept going up and up and up... you could never see the top... everything from my lower back down was killing... and I was just praying that it would be over in a 1/4 of mile.
And, finally, it was. We came through the halfway point and I heard Matt, Sean, and Nikki cheering. It felt great to be able to run again. Sean yelled something about trying to make up time by the lake, so I kept at it. Truth be told, the next 1-1.5 miles were pretty nice and I caught up to some people.
Then came the singletrack again. The downhill section was equally as steep as the first, except it was broken up by a bunch of switchbacks. The turns were not gradual... they were quite sharp... ~175 degrees. After nearly missing one and grabbing onto a tree for dear life, I slowed down. I couldn't see anyone in front of me anymore, nor hear anyone behind me. I really couldn't see any more orange flags either, and I really couldn't remember the last time that I had. That's it, I figured I was lost, doomed to run the switchbacks of this stupid mountain forever... I nearly burst into tears at the thought of being eaten by a mountain lion. Then, I looked up and saw an orange flag looming from a tree about 50ft ahead. Unfortunately, it was up a hill.
I started climbing, spurred on by the thought that the end was at least close. This glimmer of hope lasted until I came to the "rock wall". Matt took a picture of it (left), but the picture on the right is a much more accurate description (note the look of absolute I don't know what on my face):
The "rock wall" would be bad anytime. But, 5.75+ miles into the most brutal 10k that you will ever run... usually, when confronted with things that don't find believable, I shut my eyes and open them to make sure they are really there. Unfortunately, you can't shut your eyes when running trails or you will trip and fall down the side of a mountain. So, suffice to say, I never woke up from this nightmare and had to climb (not an exaggeration) up this for what seemed like forever. Matt, Sean, and Nikki were at the top cheering, which helped, until I realized that the top of the rock wall was NOT the top of the hill. Yup, it kept going up! With roots and rocks and... I couldn't even stand I was so exhausted. I staggered and grabbed onto a tree for support... it was a long way back down the mountain. I kept at it, and let the person behind me by on a section that was 1.25-people wide. She told me to "pump my arms", which I did, remembering SK's advice that your legs follow your arms. Somehow, the two of us made it to the top. Then, it was less than 200m up a "speed bump" to the finish.
No comments:
Post a Comment