Race #1 of 17; Zumbro 17 mile Trail Run

I function best when I have a plan and I am well prepared for what is coming. As with all my long training runs over this last winter my first step in being prepared is to put together all the gear needed the night before.  While I was waiting for my husband to get home from work (so we could go out to dinner with friends) I decided it would be smart to use that time putting together my gear for the morning. The hardest part for me in this process (especially at this time of year) is figuring out what I should wear. With a 60% chance of rain in the morning I figured there was a good chance that things would be wet. 

With that in mind I decided to wear the following:

Capri’s
Short sleeve shirt
Calf sleeves
Thin wool socks
Gaitor’s (turned out to be ineffective when trails are wet)
Thin jacket
Rain/wind shell
Chester Woods cap
Winter hat over the Cap (removed after it stopped raining)
Sweat/Headband
Mizuno’s trail shoes

After all this is decided I normally throw in extra gear for just in case I decide at the last minute I need something different. This usually means several different hats and gloves at this time of year. And this time I remembered to pack a change of clothes for after the race as I wanted to hang around and visit with others. 

I try to get a good night sleep before a race but most times I fail at this due to the anticipation of the race and getting up early. In this case I was also thinking about the 100 and 50 milers who I knew were already out there running.  Being a more local race for me and a later start time than most of my training runs I was able to sleep in until about 6 am. For most of this winter I have been running by that time so it was nice to sleep in.

I got up that morning and followed my normal morning race routine which includes coffee and an egg breakfast burrito. I was on the road by 7 am expecting to arrive at the start line around 8 am. As I drove it rained the entire time. I was excited to be racing so told myself that I was not going to let the rain get me down. I arrived at the start line and there were already a lot of cars parked. I ran my way to the check in area while it was still raining. After getting my stuff I hung around under the shelter for a bit. They asked us 17 milers if we would wait in our cars until 8:50 as things were getting crowded and this was an aid station for the runners coming in to start their next loops. I needed to get into my race gear anyway so I headed back to the car to wait.

At 8:50 I headed back to the shelter to listen to the pre-race announcements. I found myself standing next to Leia so when John announced that we would head out to the official start line I was swept up with the front of the pack runners. I am a back of the pack runner so this was not a good place to start. 

Looking down at the start line/campground

We were off and immediately had to start running through massive puddles to get to the trail. There was a back up of runners to get onto the trail and I fell in line with all the runners. The trail begins with a 300 foot climb on single track trail. The trails were saturated at this point and very muddy and slick. This climb involved using the various trees as leverage to climb our way up without slipping and sliding our way back down the trail. I let others start to pass me but in the single track that was harder to do. Once we hit a wider part of the trail it seemed like everyone passed me by. This is Why I do not like to start toward the front with all the other fast runners. It can be detrimental for my self confidence as I watch all these runners pass me by. 

Summit of the first climb

During the next three miles I settled into my place in the pack which is pretty near to the end of this particular race. At one point as I was trudging through the puddles and mud Mike overtook me.  He mentioned that Nora was further behind and they had started the race together. I kept going and mostly ran this section by myself. It was in this section that the mud sucked my right shoe off my foot. I had to go back to retrieve my shoe which was deeply entrenched in the mud. My gaitor stayed on my foot. Not sure why I bothered to wear my gaitors as they were useless against the water and mud.  I found myself laughing out loud at the absurdity of the mud and puddles that I found myself running through. I had no idea at the time that the rest of the trail was in the same condition if not worse.

At aid station 1 I met up with Melissa and we ran out of the aid station together and traversed the next few miles leap frogging our way through the water and mud. At some point before aid station 2 a few runners ahead of me started running back wondering if we were still on the correct trail as they had spotted a flag on a tree on the wrong side of the trail. I did not think that the flag was trail markings for the race and as Kelly came running up to us she confirmed that we were on the right trail. I was happy to see Kelly and asked if I could run with her for awhile. We ended up running the rest of the race together.

 

On many of the hills the mud was quite greasy and slippery and we had to be careful not to slide our way back down the hill. The most difficult sections of the trail included going down the hills where we were literally using the trees along the trail to make our way down without falling or sliding down the hill. 

The trail had many puddles such as this and we tried to run alongside the puddles rather than through them as the water was very cold. It was very tough going as the mud along the side of the trail was very slick, deep and sticky. The goal was to stay upright and not lose our shoes to the mud.  

Kelly and I proceeded to run the trail at a comfortable pace walking when the conditions were too rough to run. In hindsight I should have just ran through the puddles rather than trying to skirt them to stay out of the water. The water would have been easier, albeit wetter for my feet, than sliding all over. 

After leaving aid station 3 we had to climb the ridge to reach another summit before descending down Ant Hill to get back to aid station 4. This section was very challenging as the trail was a single track cut very deep into the ground which made for some deep puddles to trudge through. Once I hit Ant Hill I actually found that much easier to descend than other parts of the trail. I cruised down Ant Hill and was pleased with how fast we got down to the bottom only to realize that we needed to run the long gravel road to get to aid station 4. The long, flat gravel road is surprisingly difficult to run. I had to stop to walk for a minute but was then able to run the entire section with a pace of about 11:30 which was fast compared to what our pace on the trail had been. At aid station 4 I used the porta potty, ate some Peanut Butter and jelly wedges and started on the last leg back to the start/finish line.  Kelly likes to get in and out of the aid stations very quickly in order to make up her extra time going slow on the trail. I will need to utilize this technique in some of my races this summer that have challenging cutoff times for my pace. 

When we reached the camp ground and the last ¼ of a mile of the race I was happy to see the finish line looming. Kelly picked up the pace and I dug deep to do the same. I finished the race in 4:54 right behind Kelly. This was longer than I had thought it would take me but considering the conditions this was not too terrible. Nothing hurt while running this race and I actually had fun despite the rough trail conditions. Overall I finished this race feeling very good about the run.