Running Ruminations

Saturday’s cross-country race marked the conclusion of the regular PA USATF season, as hard as that is to believe. Like almost all the other XC races that came before it this season, the Excelsior meet — a 5k in the San Bruno Mountains in Daly City — was one that I had never run before, so I (rather happily) had no idea what I was getting myself into. For the first time all season, the women raced last, at 11am, which seemed to bring with it an entirely different vibe than the other races. 

Fortunately, we fielded full men’s and women’s (open) teams, and my carpool buddies and I arrived with enough time to watch the open men’s and the masters men’s races. It’s fire season right now, and unfortunately, there are many raging throughout this fine state, including some in Sonoma County, not much further north beyond San Francisco/where we raced, which may help explain why there didn’t seem to be a lot of people racing. (I have no idea what the air quality was, but it wasn’t anything like the fires that happened around this time last year). 

Many of my male teammates shared race strategies with the other ladies and me, and our brief 2-mile warm-up showed us that the course was pretty hilly but had long stretches of descents. Even with the sun beating down on us (and continuing to get hotter), I was looking forward to seeing what I could do. (Plus, the faster I ran, the faster I’d be able to make it down to Morgan Hill, about 60 miles south, to catch A’s swim meet that began a couple hours prior). 

Like many other XC races, Excelsior started on the grass, and per yoosh, I was snail-like coming off the starting line. As soon as we hopped off the grass and transitioned to the trail and began slowly climbing our way up for most of the first mile, I gained places and tried to remain steady. It wasn’t until the back 400m or so of the first mile that we began descending, and I tried to let gravity do its thing without racing like a complete idiot.

We had a couple little ascents and descents before doing a U-turn and making our way back up everything that we had just come down from. I generally appreciate little OAB opportunities like this in racing because seeing my teammates mid-race gives me a little spring in my step, and I always appreciate the opportunity to cheer for others. Lisa and Anna were up ahead, looking strong, with Heather and me pretty close to each other and Maria not far behind. Everyone looked good on the tough, hilly, and hot course, and we knew it’d be over soon. It’s almost funny how short (and very, very intense) 5ks seem when you’re used to long (slower) stuff. 

One of the best pieces of advice my teammates gave me was to press hard for the ~.9 mile that we’d be ascending between miles 1-2. I took his advice to heart and really tried to gap people in the middle third of the race, knowing that we’d soon be approaching a descent and would be ending the race on a pretty strong downhill. Leapfrogging with other runners is a lot of fun — it’s basically like adult tag, minus the actual tagging aspect — because if nothing else, we’re all helping each other to run better and faster. Some women and I had been leapfrogging from the get-go, and I could see that I was getting a lot closer to my teammates up ahead in the final ~800m or so of the race. 

Try as I might to work with gravity on the final ~400m downhill, any pep I had left was quickly dissipating, and probably within the final ~300m, I got gapped by a couple women; I didn’t have much left to match. We finished very near the start, in another grassy area, and at the literal end of the race, another runner and I posted a sprint-finish to the line (and if memory serves, I’m pretty sure she beat me). I finished the race feeling taxed but proud of the effort, given the conditions (a hilly course, a hot morning, and the like), and I was ecstatic that my teammate, Heather, and I could say that we had run all the regular season PA XC races this season. I can’t really pinpoint what I like about this course, but I think it was one of my favs this year. 

I needed to jet to Morgan Hill to make my daughter’s swim meet, so there was no cool-down to speak of, beyond walking (rather circuitiously) to my car. I have defined “success” rather broadly with these XC races, going more for a feeling than a specific finishing time or place, and I left Excelsior completely satisfied with the race. It’s annoying that I got gapped by a few women in the final ~400 or so, but it’s a great takeaway for me to work on in training. 

With the formal XC season behind us now and only the regional PA championship race remaining in November, my running plans for the rest of the year are TBA. I’ve officially deferred my CIM entry to 2020, and I have another PA road race, a half, on the calendar for this upcoming Sunday. Initially, I thought that maybe I’d spend this fall actually targeting the half, but it ultimately didn’t work out that way. It’ll be a good time, at any rate.

I have two spring marathons in 2020 — Big Sur in April and Mountains to Beach again in May — and I’m not certain about what’s going to happen between now and then (not as though I ever do, but still). Most days right now I’m just running what feels good and right for the given day and time I have available to train — long on trails one day, short on roads the next, or vice-versa or any other various permutations therein — and that’s keeping me pretty content, for the most part. I’m just now beginning to feel the urge to do some speedy running, so hopefully that will bode will for my forthcoming 26.2 training. 

I’m not sure if I’ll do a final recap about racing all the PA XC events or not, but in the event that all those thoughts don’t make it to my screen, at the very least, I can say that XC racing is some of the most challenging and most fun running I’ve done in the recent past. It’s so unlike any other type of racing or training that I usually do, and maybe that’s what makes it so awesome. For some reason, I find this type of running some of the most primal — it’s us against the land, whatever it wants to throw at us at any given day — and its challenging nature and simplicity really drew me in this fall. Maybe it’s because this time of year feels like controlled chaos every day with the kids and school starting and everything else, so this quarter I needed my running to be as loosely-structured as possible, thus making XC, a weird combination of short/fast running (speed) and trails/non-flat running (endurance) really attractive. I’m not really sure. It scratched the itch, anyway.

If nothing else, running allllllllll the XC races this fall has made me a better runner in ways that I can really feel but not necessarily (adequately) describe, and for that, I am quite grateful.