Grand Ridge 5 Miler - Run

I lined up at the start, right next to a sign that said, "Pain Ahead." LOL

I scoped out my competition. I am currently leading the series and anything less than an overall women's win could bump me from the top spot.

I've been around enough runners to be able to ballpark the top ten finishers, approximately.

There were two females who looked like they could give me a run for my money.

I made my way to the front as I have learned it's important to accurately self-seed in these trail races. The gun went off and we headed down the road.

The first half mile was on a jeep road with a slight decline. I used the gradual downhill to let my stride stretch out. I kept good placement as we took a 90 degree turn up onto the singletrack.

The uphill was immediate, climbing about a 13% grade and moving towards 15-17% about a mile in. It was tough but I knew it would be MUCH shorter than the last race. The light at the end of the tunnel kept me chugging along.

As we switch-backed I could see a couple females, hot on my tail.

Then I did something that leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I began to talk myself into settling for a second or third place finish. I consoled myself and said, "welp, maybe you just don't have it today" as the girls narrowed the gap a little.

Then I snapped out of it. "For fachs sake, I am headed to Maui tomorrow and am taking a little reduced week of running! I CAN afford to go all out here!!" I said to myself.

So I started making a plan in my head. Downhills are not my strong suit so I needed to get some sort of distance between us before we crested the mountain. I took a look at her face at the next switchback. Instead of a fierce look of a competitor on the hunt, she looked scared and in pain. The uphill was intense and felt relentless.

On a very long climb I decided to make my move. It was risky. I went HARD for about 100 yards. The entire hill was in sight from the bottom and then took a sharp turn. My strategy was to put some distance between us on the mentally challenging hill and then recover a bit around the corner, where they couldn't see me. The idea here is that you break them a little and they don't know that you aren't sustaining that same pace. Generally one loses a little hope and slows.

I was DYING as I rounded the corner. I glanced over my shoulder and could see they were way at the bottom. I felt pretty confident it had worked.

I also felt like I was going to puke. I dry heaved and sputtered on. Dry heaved again and then kept running. We were along a rolling ridge. The hills were nothing significant but I felt like I was moving at the pace of a slug. My legs felt like cement. As if someone had literally filled them to the brim with lactic acid and I was sloshing around.

Finally we started descending a little bit. I am not great at downhill running but I was relieved to not be going up! There were a couple turns that allowed me to look back on the course and I didn't see a soul.

I was extremely focused on the techniques my coach had talked me through as well as the conversation I had with the RD about descending. I had to stay extremely engaged in order to keep my turnover as high as it needed to be.

Although I was going down, I was breathing hard. I was churning my legs and really straining to run as fast as possible. As it turns out, when you are doing it correctly, downhill running is really hard.

Finally we hit the jeep track and I took a left, headed back to the finish with a half a mile to go. It was a slight uphill but I was able to really open up my stride again and run hard. I did not want to give anyone an opportunity to surprise me and overtake me near the finish. A lot can happen in a half mile.

I gritted my teeth and pressed hard to break the tape. I had finished over 2.5 minutes ahead of the other women.


No lapse in mental toughness

Took some demo shoes on a long cool-down.


Need to keep building strength on uphills and technique on downhills.

I applaud myself for pulling it together, and well, I might add. But I really need to stay 100% mentally tough every.single.time.