Trail Half Marathon

Today I ran the Trail Half Marathon in the Pinckney Recreation Area. I ran it last year, too -- click here to read about last year's event. The course follows a rugged and hilly 13.1-mile trail in one of the nicest natural areas in Southern Michigan. Of course, there are those folks who do the loop twice to make it a really tough 26.2-mile off-road marathon. Not me.

Rain and thunderstorms last night were threatening to either make the event really unpleasant or cause me to back out at the last minute. We'd had intense lightning and more than an inch of rain in the late afternoon and evening. But this morning, the sky cleared and showed the dawn of a beautiful day. It was even warm, with a temperature around 60 F, maybe a little muggy.

Last year I had woken at 4:30 a.m. to ready for this race. This year, feeling more confident, I delayed until 5 a.m. It's nice to give coffee and a big bowl of granola enough time to settle before setting out on a long run. I believe that last year I was better-prepared for this run. Last year I laid out a very rigorous 12-week training schedule, mixing 3 to 4 days of running with 2 to 3 days of vigorous pedaling on my bicycle trainer. This year, while I've been riding my bicycle to work, I've not been doing any hard riding at all. Most of the winter my runs were limited to weekends, and this spring I jumped into a 12-week half marathon training schedule somewhere around week 6. But last year I was plagued with knee problems; this year I was not.

About 1200 runners participate in this event, so the race is started in waves to allow runners to spread out on the narrow trail. I was tempted to start with the first wave, which was for runners with 10k pace of 7.5 min/mile or less, and probably within my reach. Not feeling overly confident, however, I started with the second wave, for those runners with a 7.5 to and 8 min/mile 10k pace. This worked pretty well, and I ran the first half of the race mostly with the same group of five or six runners at a pace somewhere around 8.5 min/mile. The pace was comfortable, and the company was good. But after a few miles I think this group began to reduce it's pace, and I began to worry that too much time was ticking away for me to reach my 1 hr and 50 min goal. In this race, with such a narrow trail, pace is not entirely self-determined.

I had expected the trail to be a muddy mess, given the inch of rain that had fallen the previous day. It was not as muddy as I had feared. There were only few sections of trail with a little mud, and it wasn't deep sticky mud, just a little layer on the surface. Some portions of the trail are actually quite sandy; the sand doesn't get muddy, but it has it's own problems. The biggest challenge, other than the steep ups and downs, is the tree roots that make footing precarious.

I felt very comfortable at the 8.5 min/mile pace for the first several miles. After about mile seven, I sucked down a package of Clif Bar Gel -- yummy strawberry with 25 mg of caffeine -- and then did my best to pick up my pace. I sped through miles 8 through 11 pretty quickly, but the big hill near the end really drained me. I was watching my time, and hoping to finish under 1:50. I should have eaten my other gel package, with 50mg of caffeine, but for no particularly reason, I didn't. I remember passing mile 12 at around 1:43, and realizing that I'd have to run the last mile at less than a 7 min/mile pace. I tried. When fresh, that's an easy mile for me, but even pushing with all my might, I couldn't force my legs to run any fast enough. I came in at 1:52:42, That's one hour, 52 minutes, and 42 seconds, and placing me 9th in the men's 40 to 44 age class. That's about 8 minutes faster than I ran it last year. I don't know yet how many runners were in that class -- last year there were 68. Last year I was much younger -- running in the 35 to 39 age class, finishing 41st of 104. I think that my improved time was less a result of better fitness, but more the result of better planning, better pacing, and less (no) time stopping on the course to stretch this year.

At the end of the run, I was greeted by my favorite family. They tried to take some pictures of me, but I'm awfully fast for photographing. After I finished, we stood around for a while and soaked in the cold water of Silver Lake with many of the other runners. Last year I'd run the last mile or two with significant knee pain. This year my knees were fine. In fact, other than being completely drained, I felt pretty good. Sitting here at the computer, now, my leg muscles are burning. I can hardly walk.

Also, just like last year, my stomach was feeling a bit yucky at the end of the run. I'm still not sure what's causing this. Maybe nerves before the run? Maybe it's simply an adverse side-effect of pushing myself to the point of being near death just to try and shave another minute off my time.

I wish now that we'd brought our tandems and gone over to Chelsea for lunch and an afternoon ride, as we did last year. We thought we'd be having more thunderstorms, and we haven't even put the rack on the van yet this year. Oh, and we also had a bathroom plumbing project that needed more attention before the weekend was out.

Can you tell which one is me? The pictures below were taken as I crossed the field in the last hundred yards of the run. The three women to my right were actually running the marathon, which started a full hour before the half marathon. That means they were finishing the first loop at 2:50, and that's only half way. Wow. By the way, although it looks like my right foot is pronating, I have pretty neutral stride, so I'm guessing the uneven ground had caused my foot to roll a little.




I'm so, so, sore...