To catch up and get back to blogging, I’ll post a few remembered races… here’s the first remembered race report.
The Dirty Half is the most popular running race in Bend. It’s a June half marathon run on some very pleasant mountain bike trails west of town. There are some hills – generally up in the first half and down in the second half. The first mile or so is on a wide, pretty gentle dirt road, and it funnels onto single track and turns uphill after that. Passing is not easy on the single track, so a lot of racers go out too fast in an attempt to get good position where it’s easier to pass. As a result, a lot of those fast-starters are a bit spent and slow down as soon as they hit the hill… and they’re hard to pass. In the past I was a hard-starter, but never to the point where I’d have to slow on the hill. I ended up running the whole first half too hard, and that left me running out of gas somewhere in the second half.
This year I had decided to go easier on the uphill and try to have more left for the downhill. Max (by the way, I hired Max King to coach me, and his work with me started in earnest just before the Dirty Half) encouraged me in this decision, and further encouraged me to try to push hard on the downhill.
Liz also decided to run the Dirty Half this year. Her training runs were fun and very promising. But we both fell ill a week or two before the race. We were pretty wiped out. We both felt well enough on race day to go ahead an line up. I think I was closer to well than Liz was, but I’m not sure I should have raced. By the end we were both feeling it, and were sick for another few weeks.
Feeling tired from illness helped me stay in control for that first mile. I surged a little just before the single track, thinking I’d pass quite a few people. But it turns out I wasn’t the only one surging. It was a bit chaotic as a few of us ended up out in the brush, hopping over bitterbrush and bunch grass in the soft dirt. The scene reminded me of something from a bad western. Adding to the effect was the delightfully surreal appearance of a bluegrass band along the trail in the middle of the forest. The Dirty Half has its own personality! I stayed in control for the climb up Phil’s canyon, and passed a few people. By the time the trail mellowed out between climbs, I was settled into a spot with nobody holding me up and nobody on my heels.
At the top of the climbing, we turn onto a wide, red cinder road for a half mile or so. That half mile takes us down pretty steeply and right back up again. As I turned onto the road I could see a group of runners a couple hundred meters ahead of me. I had hoped I’d have a chance to pass a few runners on the road, but it looked futile to try to chase them down in the distance available. At the bottom of the hill, though, I found my new coach yelling at me to “Catch that group, Dave!”
One of the things I like about being coached is that I don’t have to take responsibility for bad decisions. If I decided to chase these guys and I ended up running out of gas – well, that would be a bad decision. If Max tells me to chase those guys down – well, it means he thinks I can do it! So I took off after them. I managed to catch the group and passed all but the first two guys. I slid into position behind them as we turned back onto single track. The problem I faced at this point was that I was well above my comfortable heart rate, and I had a big group of guys right behind me. I had to find a way to stay with the guys ahead of me while recovering.
I was quite surprised to find myself holding position and pace and feeling well. My heart rate was still in the low 150s (I was hoping to be at 149 or so), but it felt comfortable. I actually felt better than I had before the surge. It was a fun discovery. The guy in front of me was faster uphill than I was, but I’d catch up with him on the downhills. We stayed together and pulled away from the crowd behind us. At mile 10, the trail turns back uphill for a mile or so, and I fell back far enough to lose contact – even though I added some effort at that point. I regained some energy heading down the switchbacks toward mile 11, and gave it another boost for the last two miles. I closed some of the gap, but never did catch the guy ahead of me.
My legs were fading toward the end, and I was happy to see the landmark outhouse where the trail turns and makes a last, short descent to the finish. I crossed the line at 1:30:55. My goal had been to break 1:30 this year, but I was happy with the time. As I told Max, everything went according to plan except for being sick. And it leaves me a little room for improvement next year. It’s always good to have a goal!
