Saturday, October 31, 2009

Farewell, TRL XC '09!


Off we go: I started at the back and moved up. A little.


The variety of terrain at Klock was really cool.


Footing was treacherous. Spikes might have been a good idea.

Klock Blueberry Farm kicked my rear today. A couple inches of rain during the week and more during the race turned much of the course spongy and mucky. No standing water, but lots of slick, gooey mud on the steep pitches and divot-strewn grass on the flats. I can't believe how spent I was by the last loop. It was far more taxing than my half-marathon PR last Sunday. I had run shy of two and a half miles and for a flicker of a moment considered walking it in. Meanwhile, the fast dudes were, like, eight minutes in front of me. I don't know how they negotiated the downhills as quickly as they must have. Of course, I'm a wus on downhills, and was passed several times. That's how it went for me: give up ground on the descents, gain a little back on the climbs. Anyway, it was a blast, the last of the four-race Team Red Lizard XC Series. Heaps of thanks to Jacob Buckmaster and everyone else who made it happen. I'm looking forward to next year. Special thanks as well, this day, to Beverly Klock (I think I have the name right) for being so sweet to Niko, inviting him into her house to pick out a book to bring home!

My Garmin.
Official Results.
Joe Dudman's race report.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your half marathon PR, Pete. I've been thinking I could tear up a half too right now; I hear that a few weeks after a marathon is prime time for setting PR's on shorter distance races.

    I'm loving the trail running I've started doing recently. I'm not sure if I'm a wuss on the downhills or not, because I've only done casual trail runs, no races yet. But I can't wait.

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  2. Thanks, Matt! Highly recommend going for it on the half; it's really fun to run a "mere" 13.1 after all that marathon training.

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