Submitted by Rush 5/18/2013 1368911358
I've been to the mountain. I'm sore, scratched, cut, bruised, and my IT band and I are going to have a long, serious talk. It took me 15 minutes to rinse the mud out of my shoes and socks. I fell off a log footbridge into a creek and banged the heck out of my left hip. The last 3 miles were tough after that. My calves are twitching, my quads are sore, and I had dirt in places that I haven't had dirt in for years. In short, I loved it!
Rain, lots and lots of rain. Mud, lots and lots of shoe-sucking mud. Mud over the tops of your shoes, over the tops of your ankles, mud up to your shins. Lagoons of water on the trail, some holding deep holes that you would sink in up to your knee. A roaring creek crossing (on the out and and the back), the water almost up to my hips. And right smack in the middle...a mountain. I mean a MOUNTAIN. I knew it was there. I'd studied the course map. I'd looked at the terrain. "It looks like we run up this valley until we hit a wall. Then we climb the wall.", I told a guy before the race. And that was pretty much it.
The course was great. A little bit of asphalt in the begining. Some gravel roads and miles of single track. Lots of foot bridges. Some made out of logs with a handrail; some like boardwalks. Good support with water, Gatorade, GU gels, and fruit. I'd decided to try to just drink to thirst today and push the sugar. I didn't carry my Camelbak,and I ate a gel every 20 minutes. I felt like my energy levels stayed strong. I did have one setback early. At some point, I must have stopped my watch, maybe trying to wipe water off it's face. When I went through the 3 mile marker in 19 minutes, I knew something was wrong and then I realized my watch had stopped. I asked a fellow runner what our elapsed time was. My watch was 9 minutes off. Oh no, now I had to do math.
Mile markers were set every three miles. That was fine until about mile 12 or so, then it became psychologically harder as I knew my watch was wrong and the GPS was wrong too. It would have been easier on me to be able to tick off the miles. The 15 to 18 stretch seemed to take forever, but then my hip was throbbing pretty bad too.
Great free lunch after the race with a free beer. Live bluegrass music under the pavilion. Overall a very well run event that I can't wait to do again.
I finished 26/154 and 6/18 M40-49. If they had done five year age groups, I would have won M45-49. I ran 2:57:29. I started too fast. All week I had told myself to go out conservative until I climbed the mountain at 9 & 10 and then push hard on the back. I just didn't slow down and that, combined with falling off the log, hurt me in the last three miles. I was still "flying" at mile 15.
Link: http://rightontimeproductions.blogspot.com/2013/05/cradle-to-grave-30k-and-rock-bye-5k.html
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