The first time I ran this race was in 2015, which had been a particularly dry winter, so there was *some* mud, but it was a pretty fast course for trail. They even had to hose down the Pig Sty, the deepest, sloppiest mud on the course. I ran it again with friends in 2016, and oh boy what a difference the mud made. It was such a sloppy, challenging course. I felt like I probably did an extra mile in lateral slides. It took me more than 28 minutes longer that year.
This year I had no particular expectations. It was a pretty wet winter, and they decided to run the course in the opposite direction, which could potentially affect the finish times. Of course I'm always hoping I'm fast, but I haven't been on the trails quite as much since my knee injury last year, and although I felt confident, I hadn't tested it, so I decided just to stay tuned in and have fun.
About a mile or two in, I decided to set the display on my Garmin to heart rate rather than tempo/time/distance. First, it was impossible to hold a steady tempo, and heartrate seemed like a better indicator for me. Secondly, it was much easier on my old eyes to read this display while bouncing around. :-) I endeavored to keep my rate between 158 and 170 throughout and was pretty successful. (FWIW, I haven't really ever paid too much attention to my HR, so if that seems like I gave myself too much leeway I wouldn't be surprised).
I determined early on that I wasn't going to really fight anyone for position on this one. I wanted it to be a challenging run, but I wasn't in the headspace to really race that day. I settled in around mile 5 or 6 with a couple of runners who were about my pace, and eventually one particular runner and I pulled ahead of the others. She was behind me until about mile 11, and she pulled ahead. The competitor in me thought about trying to take back my position, but I reminded myself of my goal for this run and we ran the rest of it still close together, but with her navigating and me drafting for the final miles. I came in about 15 seconds behind her, and was surprised to have someone hand me a mug and say "You got third in Masters!" as I crossed. My on-trail friend had just gotten second! First was a good 3-4 minutes ahead of us.
All in all, it was great fun, just sloppy enough, and a nice test of how my knee did on trail, which is comforting as I have a 50k on trail coming up in May. My final stats:
15.5 miles (25K) in 2:33:46 (9:55 pace)
3rd in Masters out of 52
7th Woman out of 98
32nd overall out of 215
1st in age group out of 14
Next Up: Oakland Marathon 3/24
In the Pig Sty
