Fleet Feet Sacramento held the inaugaural Blood, Sweat, & Beers trail race today. It was held in Auburn (endurance capital of the world) on supposedly some of the Western States course. Granted, since I just moved here this year, it wouldn't have mattered whether it was the first year or not except that they ran out of free beer and my friends and I had to wait around forever for them to get back. But that's not why I ran this race, oh wait maybe it was.
Race started at 8am, in waves. I went in the first wave since it was supposed to be 9 min and under milers. I had no idea what I could run since this was 3 weeks after Lake Placid and super hilly and traily. I figure I will decide in the first couple miles like last weekend when I decided during the swim. I start out, just trying to run with the pack, which is going surprisingly fast. It started on grass, then pavement, then a steep big descent on the trail. I hate descending, I hate descending even more on unstable trail. Slowed down and I think got a bunch of people stuck behind me. Then onto level trail and everything starts to blend together. What I have come to notice at most races is that many people can beat me on the descents but then I power up the uphills. So the girls that were impatiently stuck behind me going down got passed on the up and were never seen again.
Kept running, trying to go as hard as possible without tripping over my feet or the roots or the rocks. Sprint the straightaways, don't walk on the uphills, and don't fall down the downhills. Most of the hills were vertical, which made for interesting ups and downs.
I remember wanting to puke somewhere around 3 or 4 miles. Around 9 or 9.5 miles I started to lose concentration and almost tripped on roots twice. Mad sprint to the finish and crossed for a chip time of 1:32:44. This made for 2nd in the F20-29 age group and 7th woman, though don't know how many total. Overall 35/337 finishers though. Top 10%!
I think I can say I am mainly satisfied with the race. Saw the highest heart rate ever (196 bpm) and got the nausea feeling. I am not really sure where I could have run harder and still stayed uprigh.
2 comments:
Interesting description of your race. I just don't know how you do it! You must have nerves of steel!
Top 10% and still had to wait for your free beer? That sounds hardly fair :)
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