Trails

Andrea

Ouachita Trail 50k Race Report

Yes, that’s 50 kilometers (over 30 miles) of (mostly) trail running (and walking).

The race started just before dawn this morning from Maumelle Park near Little Rock, AR. The first three miles or so were on the road, so there was just enough light to see the trail once we got there. I had to exercise a lot of self control on that part- there were a few hills, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t make the same mistake that I’d made in my first 50k a few years ago when I ran uphill for several miles while my legs were fresh, but then nearly died towards the end of the race! Within the first 5 miles, we crossed Pinnacle Mountain. This part of the race was my absolute favorite, and it almost didn’t happen because of the rain forecast. However, we lucked out and the rain passed by to the south overnight, and the crossing was able to go on. The awesome thing about the mountain is that the last 400 yards or so is nearly straight up a boulder garden. I used my crazy spiderwoman skillz to scale the rocks and my mountain goat descending skillz to (unknowingly) put a giant gap between me & the 2nd place woman.

When I made it down the trail to the next aid station, someone let me know that I was in first place. WHAT?!?! I seriously was just trying to plod my way along- I had no intentions of trying to be competitive! So, I did just that- plodded along with my usual strategy- walk up hills, jog the flat spots, and run down hills. Doing this, I held on to first until just before the next aid station. The woman who would go on to run caught up to me and left the aid station first, and I didn’t see her again until the turnaround. Honestly, I didn’t care at all.

The next 22 miles or so went on pretty uneventfully- I ate a lot of gel, turned my ankles a few times, drank some pickle juice at an aid station (that one had beer! I can’t say I wasn’t tempted…), almost got lost once or twice, and wished that it would pour down rain so I wouldn’t have to stop when I had to pee. You know- the usual trail racing stuff…

I ended up finishing in 6 hours and 15 minutes- about 10 minutes back from a woman who, from what I heard from aid station staff, was being a real beotch because she’d missed a turn and didn’t like that the course description hadn’t mentioned that the trail was rocky and technical. I was like, SRSLY?!?! Maybe she should stick to road racing. The next gal back came in about 15 minutes after me. She’d caught up to me as I was leaving the turnaround aid station, but she looked pretty tired, and I happened to get a nice little energy burst after I left, so I never saw her again.

I’m not gonna lie to you- I’m in some pain right now like you wouldn’t believe (unless, of course, you run Ultras, too), but I had an outstanding race! I’ve never felt so good for so long during a run of that length! I’m usually dragging pretty hard by about mile 25, though today I kept a good plod going the entire way.I was surprised because I knew I hadn’t really trained that much…

I went back and looked- Since before X-mas, when I was doing some short runs for x-training, my first run to prepare for this race was exactly 1 month ago today. Whoa.

So the epic Summer of 2009 begins.

Andrea

How…

…do you dress to run 32 miles in the rain when the temps are in the low 60s? Not cold enough for the warm stuff, but too warm to go in the usual shorts/t-shirt. Hmmm…

Andrea

Countdown to Ouachita

Two more days & I’ll be leaving for Arkansas for the Ouachita Trail 50k. I’m looking forward to getting back on the trail for a long run. Yesterday I had a great “tune up” run at the Lakeland Trails. Short of driving 45 minutes out to Shelby Forest, they’re the best trails for some hill practice. After a quick warmup on the mostly flat blue & red trails, I did a few repeats on the much more technical yellow trail. I felt really good, but held back a bit & practiced my powerwalk on the uphills (in the world of ultramarathon-ing, it’s universally accepted that you walk up long, steep parts). I did, however, let loose on the downhill sections, and even managed to practice grabbing/slinging around a well placed tree in the corner of a fast switchback.

How is it that I can be so incredibly comfortable running down a steep, rooty trail a breakneck speed, but then chicken out when I try to do the same thing on a bike?!

I digress… I’ve got my hill legs back. The race is still going to wreck me, but it’ll be good endurance practice for my next adventure.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention… I’m seriously considering an entry into the solo division of a 12 hour MTB race on May 9th. I briefly tried to find someone to join me for a duo, but she’s already planning on racing solo, so I gave up & decided I should just go at it alone. Between now & then, I’ll have a 50k run, then the weekend of the 25th, I’ll be going to an adventure racing clinic in Little Rock, so I’ll probably stick around on Sunday & head out for an all day epic of some sort on the Ouachita and/or Womble trail(s). After that, I’ll likely just stick to conditioning on the road bike and practicing some tech-ey stuff on the MTB until the 9th.

Anyone who is reading this interested in going to Arkansas on the 25th?

Andrea

If I were on a rollercoaster right now…

…I’d be sitting in the first car with the lap-bar locked down, slowly creeping up the first gigantic hill on an insane set of tracks.

I just got word from the bike shop that my Jet 9 frame is on its way, and all of the components are probably getting ordered as I type this. It looks as if things will begin arriving on Thursday this week!!

Just like when I bought my first road bike, I’ll be heading out to Arkansas this weekend to run a 50k (though this time, it’s the Ouachita Trail 50k & last time it was the Midnight 50k). And, just like last time, I’ll come home so incredibly sore and beaten up that I’ll hardly be able to throw a leg over the bike to take it for a lap around the block!

It’s OK, though.

Weekend after this one, I’ll be going back to Little Rock for an adventure racing clinic. Hopefully I’ll make some connections over there and will get advice (and maybe some company!) for where to go in the area for some good trail riding. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. There are some TBRA XC races coming up, and there’s an adventure race at Village Creek State Park in June as well as a few other trail (running) races to round things out!

So right now I feel like I’m moving through molasses, but hopefully once my bike gets here and school wraps up @ the end of the month, it’ll be the start of an incredibly epic summer. Stay tuned…

Andrea

Road & Trail

What a weekend! Saturday, I rode 72 miles at RB’s Ride Into Spring. After some lunch and a change of clothes, I headed out to Shelby Forest for a 25k trail run (that’s 15.5 miles for the metrically challenged). It was a really good run because I finally got my downhill legs back. It took me right at 3 hours- which included a sort-of long break at the turnaround point so I could refill my hydration pack, dump the grit out of my shoes, and walk for a few minutes while I ate a couple of fig newtons. Oh yeah- and I stopped to get a photo of a little snake that was sunbathing on the trail:

snake

After taking its photo, I grabbed a twig and encouraged it to move off of the trail so that it wouldn’t get stepped on (accidentally or otherwise) by the next person coming through. It protested a bit and struck at the stick a couple of times, but eventually decided that the stick wasn’t backing down, so it retreated into the leaves.

By the time I was at around 12 miles, it was getting tough to convince myself to keep running. It was my longest run so far, but still only half the distance I’ll cover in a couple of weeks when I go to the Ouachita Trail 50k. I ran my first 50k a few years ago w/my longest run beforehand being 14 miles, so I think I’ll make it…

Anyway, I was pretty beat when I got home. Ryan was hungry and wanted to know what was for dinner. With little hesitation, I told him to order pizza delivery. It’s literally been years since I had Pizza Hut pizza and even longer since it’s been delivered to my door, and, considering I’d performed about 7 hours worth of physical activity, I wasn’t concerned about calories. It was freaking delicious. I sprawled out on the couch and ate half of a medium pan pizza (cheese!) while watching Cops on TV.

So what does a normal person do the day after training for 7 hours? Trick question- normal people don’t train for 7 hours!

I woke up yesterday morning and suited up for our usual 70+ mile Sunday ride. It was tough- We rode in to the Outdoors store on Union with a breeze of a headwind, then rode out with a big group to the Shelby Forest General Store. I rode hard with the group part of the way, but then split off and did my own sub-threshold interval for the last few miles before the store. My legs felt surprisingly good considering what they’d done the day before.
On the way back, Ryan and I didn’t ride with the group. There were probably about 30 people out, and I don’t really like being with such a large group going 27-28mph down Watkins because the likelihood of hitting random road garbage and wrecking is higher than usual. This meant that we had to battle a pretty tough wind most of the way until we were back downtown. Ok, I’ll admit- we should have stayed with the group…

It was a tough ride back. I think I got close to my limit on physical activity for the weekend, because by the time we were a few miles from home, the power I was able to sustain for any period of time was about 50 watts lower than normal. Once we were home, I had leftover pizza and a protein shake and passed out on the couch with Indy for about two hours.

So this is probably going to be a normal weekend for me from now on. Hopefully it will prepare me for whatever long-duration endurance fun I come across- I just want to be prepared for whatever comes along, be it adventure race, MTB race, trail run, etc… you get the idea. I’m sometimes amazed at the capacity I’ve built myself up to while still being incredibly eager to see just how much more I can do.

Andrea

Pop Quiz, hotshot…

You’re on the trail, and you reach this:

watercross

What do you do?

Caulk the wagon and float it across?
Pay a few dollars and take the ferry across?
Attempt to ford the river?

I had to dog paddle in the middle, but neither of the oxen drowned and none of the supplies floated away…

Andrea

Weekend Roundup

Well, Ryan took off Saturday morning for the Tuscaloosa race. I rode with the small group from Trinity and we ended up cutting the ride a little short because we got drenched in the rain, and the wind was getting fierce (like, not uncomfortable fierce… more like “blowing you off the road” fierce). We still ended up riding about 50 miles. When I got home, I cleaned up, ate some lunch, and chilled out for a bit.

After luch digested a bit, I changed and headed back out- this time on foot. I ran (ok, jogged slowly) down the rail trail to Shelby Farms where I made a muddy lap of the Tour de Wolf trail before running home. According to mapmyride.com, it’s’ exactly 3 miles from my house to TdW, and the trail is 6 miles… 12 miles! I was pretty sore by the time I got home, but felt alright otherwise. This is my longest run of the year, and, considering it was also my 4th one of the year, I’d say it was pretty good, albeit pretty slow as well.

The weather got pretty gross overnight. The wind slowed to a “calm” 15mph, but the temps dropped into the low 40’s. The sun rose behind a solid blanket of clouds. Yuck! Nevertheless, I bundled up and headed to Outdoors Inc on Union to meet up with the 9:00 group. I enjoyed riding straight into the headwind the entire way- most of the time doing around 200 watts and only going 15 or so mph. With a lot of people gone to Tuscaloosa for the weekend, it was a small group. I was miserably cold, and my legs felt like they were filled with rocks from the rail trail the day before. Luckily, Henry and Dennis were also beat from battling with the wind yesterday and decided to ride about half way to the normal turnaround before heading back. I went for it- even after a nice hard pull down Mud Island, I still hadn’t warmed up (my hands had actually lost more feeling). On the way home, we took an alternate route up Central instead of Union. It was pretty cool to see some of the large, old midtown houses and boulevards.

Oddly enough, I’ve felt really strong on the bike this weekend. I happened to take a second look at the Tuscaloosa race flyer last night- I’d forgotten that they were paying the top spots of P1/2/3 women out the same as P/1/2 men. I probably could have made a little money. Oh well. I have had a good weekend otherwise. The break from worrying about racing is pretty relaxing, and I’m having more fun on my bike now than I have in a while.

Next race I do will be Ride to Live on April 11th- it’s on the Barbour Motorsports Park track, which is a freaking BLAST to ride on. It’s also nice because it can be made into a day trip… gotta keep saving up for that mountain bike!

Andrea

Am I Crazy?

Ok, don’t answer that… I think that “crazy” is a reletive term, and, when you’re talking about me, I think this is one of my more tame ideas.

I was planning on hitting up the Trek demo day on April 18th & 19th because I’m MTB shopping. However, I’ve prettymuch got my sights set on purchsing a Niner Jet 9 frame, so the demo day isn’t really needed.

So, what to do that weekend?? How about the Ouachita Trail 50k? (FYI- 50k = just over 31 miles)

Sure, the longest run I’ve done so far this year is 8.5 miles, but I do plan on running 10ish on Saturday, and I can definately head out to Shelby Forest for a 25K the weekend after this one. The longest run I’d done before my first 50k was a mere 14 miles, and I still came in sub 6:00, and, even though I could barely find my tent afterwards and had some pretty severe GI upset, I was generally none worse for wear. I am more fit now than I was then, so yeah, I think I’m gonna go for the 50k.

If I were really cool, I’d camp out another night at Lake Sylvia and do some fire road running the morning after. Something tells me I’ll be a little bit wrecked, though. I’ll probably just go home and ride my bike 70 miles on Sunday…

Andrea

Werewolf Night

Every year the Warthogs have a “werewolf run” out at Shelby Forest in north Shelby County. We rent the group camp lodge, go for a cold night run to the Mississippi River (9 miles round trip), then spend the rest of the night “celebrating.” Some people spend the night, but I opted for the “stop celebrating early” and go home around midnight strategy.

This year, Steve and I opted to ride mountain bikes down to the river (necessary if you’re going to stop celebrating early) rather than run (in case you’re wondering, running takes a lot longer!) We rode down the boat ramp, dipped our tires in the river, then hurried back to enjoy some delicious lodge food & beverage. It was pretty good time…

Andrea

Connect the Dots

I played connect-the-reflective-tree-dots tonight at the Lakeland Trails. I’ve grown to love the little reflective points of light (invisible by day) that lead me around the trail via hadlight @ night. I wanted to go for a short, hard run, which is the perfect fit to the short, but hill-intense trail system. To say I felt great would be an understatement. I warmed up on the flatter section of trail in the back of the park then came back to the front to run repeats back and fourth on the first 1/2 mile of yellow trail. I managed two repeats (2 miles), and had a blast! Hills that I normally find myself barely cresting felt surprisingly easy.

Oh yeah… and it had just finished raining, so they were a little wet, too. In my exuberance, I failed to shine my headlamp on a large root in the middle of a downhill section of trail. Before I knew what was happening, I became airboune… but not for long. I landed still going downhill and slid long enough to think “WOOHOO!” Once I came to a stop, I stood up and shined my flashlight back at the trail- I’d made a good two & a half foot slide mark in the wet leaves… DAMN I wish someone had been there to see that!!! Oh well- I had Ryan take a photo when I got home: