misty rain, friends, dirt & confusion: Wildcat 5 mile Trail race report

I woke up grumpy this morning.   It was Saturday, early (for me - 5:30am), cold and rainy. 

cold, misty weather

I didn't realize that when I signed up for the Wildcat 5 mile trail race in Highlands Ranch - that this would be the first Saturday in forever and Dave and I would have a chance to sleep in.  Since his 50 miler was over - no need to get up and prep for his long runs.  Next week I'll be in NYC in order to road trip to Dallas, Tx - so no sleeping late w/my honey next weekend either. :(

My friend, Lynnette raved about this race.  5 miles of dirt(yay), some hills(boo), some downhills(yay), great views(yay), great swag(yay).   The yays outweighed the one lone "boo" - so I signed up.  It sounded like a FANTASTIC idea at the time.  :)

Yeah and I didn't realize that it was a whopping 49(!) miles one way to Highlands Ranch (south Denver).  When I think Denver and I think 'oh - it's only 20 minutes away.'  welll...yeah.. that's downtown Denver that's 20 minutes away.  

The drive time to run ratio was pretty low.   BUT I always like to do what I say I'm going to do, my only valid would be excuse to blow this off would be injury - and I'm not injured.   So I set my alarm and got my lazy ass up early.

nice brooks tech shirt - previously they gave away sweatshirts - everyone was complaining about no sweatshirts this year

The race goal

I only had one main goal for this race: Maintain a legitimate race HR.  

My last race I couldn't get my HR to race pace HR - it was a sedate 156 avg (zone 2ish range).  That frustrated and concerned me - hopefully it was just a fluke.   I was hoping this race I could maintain a HR at least 167.

The course

Garmin stats:
452 elevation gain total (trending up on the way out - trending down on the way back)
4.79 miles (a tad short of 5 miles)

a little bit of climbing, a little bit of descending...not much in the way of techy bits

I would characterize the course as a typical early season XC mtn bike race course.  
100% smooth singletrack, some climbing, some descending, not much in the way of anything technical.   In my opinion, this type of course favors the more fit and fast uphill climbers as the downhills are non-technical and are easy to maintain speed without worrying about any obstacles.

I did get really excited at the halfway point when there was ~100 yards of a mildly technical section, but that soon ended and it was back to buff singletrack (not that there's anything wrong with that... )  ;)

Racing!

I got a decent parking place did a quick bib pickup and sat in my car with the heater blasting, watching out for Lynnette and watching the misty rain.

I never saw Lynnette at the start.  We are close to the same pace - so I was hoping to see her on the trail.  I never saw her until I saw her waiting for me at the finish, as she was ahead of me the whole time and finished over 2 minutes faster than me. :)

The course was slightly muddy,  but not bad.   I felt I started of kinda conservative (negative split queen strikes again!) but at a race pace.   I never bothered to look at my HR and rarely looked at my watch to check pace.  I just ran by PE.

I really didn't pay much attention to people around me, just trying to maintain a hard effort.  I ended up going back and forth with a young lady(I guessed to be in her 30s) wearing vibram 5 fingers.  I wondered if her feet were cold.   Yes - it was the typical scenario for me - she'd pass on the ups and I'd pass on the downs.   Eventually, she passed me on a up and I was never able to catch up to her again.

Finally, we were more on the down and I tried to keep the pace hard.  I did look at my garmin when mile 4 beeped and I saw 38:55 had elapsed time and was hoping to finish the last mile in somewhere in the sub-9 min mile range.

I finished in 45:44 (official time 45:42).  I was very happy to see that my HR avg was 167!  Mission accomplished!   And on the downhills - I had kept my HR high so I didn't let up on the downhills.   I was fairly pleased.

Again, typical "runners high" struck again and I was really, really happy that I had done this race.

Mass confusion

Lynnette and I waited at the finish for her friend, Lois.  Lois is 67 years old and started running (at Lynnette's behest) 5 years ago.   She is truly amazing.  She finished in a respectable 58:xx minutes.   Very inspiring!

They never posted results before they started awards and everyone was standing around waiting for awards.

They finally started announcing the 30-39 AG (Lynnette's AG) and I was excited to see Vibram wearing girl was 3rd and I KNOW Lynnette was ahead of her.  They called 2nd place and then they called Lynnette for 1st place.   She was surprised and I was very excited for her.

1st place medal

They got to my AG and I was called out for 2nd place. 

2nd place 50-59AG (out of 6) - I got some Michelin man action going on!

But then a girl, Betsy asked Lynnette "What's you AG?"   Betsy was in the same AG as Lynnette and finished like 8 minutes ahead of Lynnette.   Immediately, Lynnette gives Betsy the 1st place medal and they go off to the timing tent to straighten things out.  

Turns out they missed 6-7 minutes of the faster runners.  Anyone that was under 36 minutes.  It was a total cluster.  People had already left with their medals awarded under the wrong results.

Looks the the 50-59 Women's AG still stands, but most of the  younger AGs were totally screwed up.   Lynnette was super sweet about the whole thing and a great sport. 

I know a lot of people were frustrated with the results, but things happen.  I don't think there was a big prize purse (or any cash awarded) in this race - so maybe it shouldn't matter so much??

Overall, it was a fun time.  It was a fun course, it was good to do a hard run that I wouldn't have normally done and it was nice to blow out carbon and get back to being able to run a race pace.