UC Santa Cruz Challenge 2009

We had a bazillion and one ladies from my cross country team show up to race on Saturday in Santa Cruz. We had at least 11 at the line! It was just amazing for such a small race of 60 or so women, and a little reminiscent of the team domination at races with my cycling team.

The course is 4 miles on gravelly fireroads. The first 1+ miles starts with a steep wind-sucking uphill and then flattens for about 30 seconds and remains uphill for a long long time. Then it flattens out slightly, we do a 180 at a little less than 2 miles in, backtrack for a mile and come down a gradual decline until the last 200m which takes you past the starting line and up a bit of the first hill to the finish.

My goals were to beat my course best of 29:06, and to go out conservatively so I wouldn't blow up like I did last year. Therefore, I declared at the starting line that my goal was to be the last person up the first steep hill and placed myself in the back of our team line, where I belong anyway. (The other ladies would finish well under 28 minutes.) The starter announced that there were fires in the mountains north of us and for people with asthma to be cautious. I hadn't noticed any smoke on the warmup...

BANG! It's not very often that you get a gun-start at a tiny XC race, but we were off, and I was holding back as much as I could. For the first time, I could smell smoke, but that disappeared after a couple minutes. I just kept telling myself to stay relaxed and let it rip on the downhill. But then, I started catching teammates and all these positive thoughts went through my head and I got really excited. It is SO GREAT to be racing alongside teammates. I was a big dork and wore my Garmin that's as big as my head, but I have mile splits now! Ha! So, the first mile was about 7:20, which is excellent for an uphill mile, and right on pace to break 29.

There were at least 3 of us in a little group at the turn-around (possibly 5). For some reason I couldn't turn as efficiently as the other two ladies and I lost contact and couldn't seem to catch back up on the flats. One of our star runners who had a tough time with the smoke and the hill, flashed by me as if I were standing still and cheered some encouragement to follow her, but there was no way I was going to try to match the speed of a sub-6 minute/mile marathoner, even if she is out of shape. I'm out of shape too if she is. About this time, I recorded my second mile in about 6:55. Way cool! Now I'll really break 29. Anyway, another teammate passed me at a much slower rate, gave the same encouragement, and I latched on. She did all the work, and I did all I could to not get dropped on the long downhill. We passed the 3 mile mark and my split was about 6:35. By this time, I could no longer calculate chances of finishing time and just focused on staying near my teammate. One gal with great turnover passed us, but that was it. My teammate surged with about 600 to go and I couldn't respond. I caught back up to her on the finishing hill right as we crossed the line and left no space for anyone to sqeeze between us. I didn't see the official results, but my time ended up being about 27:30. The last mile was 6:15ish.

Holy cow, I just ran faster per mile in a 4-mile XC race than I did at a flat road 5k 7 weeks ago! And I totally blew my previous best out of the water.

Today, I can barely walk.

Cross Country Season is Upon Us

Alright. Goals:

• Beat all my times from all past PA races.
• Stay injury-free by being careful and mindful.
• Learn about how I improve (and fail to improve) by following a specific training plan tailored to me.

Santa Cruz is coming up on Saturday and looking at my past times on the course, I would like to run 28 minutes. Previous best from 2005 is 29:06, and last year I wasn't running much and completely bonked after the steep, uphill start, coming just under 31. This course is up up up for the first mile, flat for the 2nd and 3rd miles and a nice long downhill for the 4th mile. The finish is about 200 meters uphill. I've been practicing the uphill, so if I relax, I think I'll be able to finish strong.
Santa Cruz Goals:

• Break 29 minutes
• Go out at a moderate pace up the first steep hill. Pick off runners later.
• Hammer the last two miles.

I'm looking forward to racing with tons of teammates this year and hopefully blowing my old times out of the water. (But I say that every year. *sigh*)