the Way of the Turtle

REBUILDING DISTANCE 2010 - Race #2
Spring Forward Distance Run 15k Road Race
Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Spring Forward 15k is an oddball race for me... it's a somewhat challenging 15k (lots of hills) and honestly the scenery isn't spectacular this time of year (when everything is still mostly shades of brown and grey.) At the same time, even in shades of brown the Mendon countryside can be nice to look at, there's often wildlife to check out, and any race organized by the folks at Yellowjacket Racing is bound to have a ton of positive energy associated with it. So far that's made it worth doing for the last three years...

Last June I tore something in my knee (probably my meniscus) which derailed many of my running plans for the year, then re-tore the same thing in mid-November. So I didn't run nearly enough last year and spent a lot of time eating way too much... in other words I jumped into 2010 substantially heavier than I should be and definitely out of shape. Snowshoe running this winter helped a bit (though my enjoyment of food didn't!) and I'm trying to gradually (so as not to aggravate my knee) build back up to longer distances. Since I haven't run over 9 miles since the end of October, I felt pretty confident about today's race in two areas - it would be slow, and it would hurt.

My knee grumbled on and off most of the time but didn't give me any major trouble. I kept at a fairly slow but steady pace near the back of the pack, with a few people behind me (including two runners that seemed familiar - I realized later they were at the Darts Lake Dash snowshoe race up in the Adirondacks at the end of January.) It turns out that there were more folks "behind" me than I realized, since some of the slower runners had opted for the 7:30 AM "early start" (I had enough trouble getting myself in gear for the 8:30 start!)

My legs really felt sore and sluggish for the first couple of miles, then felt decent for the middle miles, then started to lose it for the last two or so... never so much that I felt myself slowing all that significantly from the high 11's to mid-12's I was running, but enough that I could tell I hadn't run this far in a while. I also spent much of the run with my inner thighs chafing... turns out my compression shorts had worn through, so that's no great surprise, but it will be uncomfortable for a few days. I managed to hold off the folks behind me for the last few miles and finished with a respectable (for me) time of 1:56:08 - under two hours (my overall goal) and slightly longer than in 2008, but well above my 2009 PR (again, no surprise... last year I was in much better shape at this point.) My knee was sore but manageable, so I also met my goal of not doing anything more than somewhat aggravating it.

Along the way we were treated to a bit of wildlife (half a dozen deer running across the road ahead of us as we were leaving Mendon Ponds Park, a northern mockingbird singing happily in a tree right near the 8 mile mark) and a few nice views of the countryside, even if they were in shades of brown and grey. The volunteers, as always, were absolutely awesome, and I thought it was really cool that they held up the awards by 15 minutes to wait for the last runners to come in and also encouraged everyone who was still hanging around to come to the finish and cheer on the last runners to come in. Like I said, there's always tons of positive attitude at Yellowjacket Racing events - just one of the many reasons I keep coming back to their races and will continue to do so!

JMH

2010 Event Totals
Run 12.5 mi, 2 hr 30 min
Bike
Snowshoe 71.7 mi, 18 hr 26 min

states visited: CT, MA, NY, VT