Today was the final race of the Saratoga Stryders’ 2018 Trail Series. Each race is 5K, held on the same course at Camp Saratoga, now called the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park. The race has a mass start, with 80-100 runners starting on top of a hill, converging almost immediately into double track. Right after the start, runners pass through what was once a place for Scouts to gather and listen to stories near the fire. We then run past one of my old troop’s traditional camping spots, on the right, and a barely visible trail on the left, leading to a bridge across the brook and then up to a concrete lean-to. We used to play “Russian Spy” in these woods, a combination of “Hide and Seek” and “Tag”. Today the understory has returned, and most of the traces of the Scout camp are gone. Our old camping area looks like it has always been woods, and the bridge I just mentioned had almost completely rotted away the last time I checked.
Today, however, none of that was on my mind. I started cautiously, not wanting to get caught up in the initial scramble, and then started working my way up through the field. The downhills felt amazing, a combination of finally finding the right shoes and finally finding a good training rhythm. As a result, I blasted down the initial two as quickly as I could. I knew, overall, I was running too fast to sustain the pace to the end, but I had no intention of relenting until my body said it needed to. It felt surreal to be moving so fast on sand, in the woods, and it felt even more surreal to know that I was running slow compared to the people ahead of me. Both of these thoughts flashed through my mind, then I silenced them, and focused on the task of incrementally working my way up the field.
It couldn’t last.
As we entered the butterfly habitat, formerly an ocean of sand, now a sea of greenery and occasional swarms of Karner Blues, I caught up with one of my friends and her child. We said hello, I told her that I was moving way too fast, and it won’t last, and then I moved on. Another runner overheard, and she said we were moving at approximately a 9:55 pace, which seemed more accurate than the 11:20 my watch was showing. We chatted for a moment, and I hoped she’d run with me, but she fell off, and I kept moving.
The next big hill broke me, and I ended up power hiking up it until it leveled off. After that I tried to keep pushing, but I was starting to fatigue, and the easy floating feeling from before was gone. Around 1.75 miles, my Achilles got sore, and I knew it was time to ease off. I couldn’t bring myself to ease off all the way, but I started getting passed. I let them go, knowing that if I pushed too hard, I risked a more serious injury to my Achilles, potentially ending my chances of completing the races I have on the calendar for September. I would also risk letting down my Ragnar teammates, and I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself for being that greedy. I started to walk the short steep sections, to preserve my energy, and to lean forward enough to give my Achilles and calf muscles a quick stretch.
The course is positively diabolical. After some initial hills, and the big one I mentioned earlier, it more or less levels out for a while, never flat, but not steep for long. Once you hit the last 1K, however, you climb back onto the rollercoaster. It was here, after getting passed a few more times, that I finally found my legs again, and made a hard push to the finish. I blasted down the last long, absurdly steep hill, shouted a warning to the runner who had just passed me about which side I was taking, and then attacked the next uphill hard enough to keep everyone behind me away for the final downhill. The trail changes over from a woods road back to single track, and as we enter that single track, we’re greeted with what amounts to a chute. It looks like the bottom half of a round plastic slide on a playground, if that playground were designed by a maniac who thought putting roots at alternating angles every few feet was a good idea.
Somehow, after all these years of being scared to death of falling down hills, I’ve managed to get over it when I’m running. If I were walking down any of the large hills on this course, I would go slowly, freaking out the whole way. When I’m running with shoes that I trust, I’ve gained enough confidence to know when it’s safe to push and when I need to back off.
Shortly after the chute of death, we cross over ancient (OK, 30 year old) bridges and singletrack along the side of Delegan Pond. The pond is to our right, and to our left are the cabins that my troop managed to consistently get for our last 1 or 2 summer camps at Camp Saratoga, before the program was canceled. Most of those cabins are still standing, out of sight from us as we blast down the final bit of singletrack before the dam and the finishing chute.
I pushed hard as long as I could, but I started to fail as I rounded the final turn. To my right, I saw another of my friends, waiting for the rest of his family to come in. He shouted words of encouragement, and then told me that there was someone right behind me, about to catch me. That was enough to elicit a final sprint, holding off the runner behind me as we both dashed toward the finish.
Afterwards, I thanked the runner who was coming in behind me, and thanked my friend. He commented that he didn’t know I had those legs, and I remarked that I can’t do that for very long, but they’re there. I crossed the finish line under 33 minutes. It was my fastest time on that course all year, possibly ever.
Once again I’m filled with gratitude for what my body is capable of doing. I know I still have weight to drop, but I’m grateful to once again be dropping weight, without starving myself.
I know that part of my success tonight was due to finally finding shoes that fit. My feet have gotten so used to these Altras that I can’t wear anything except Altras or my last remaining pair of FiveFingers. Everything else is so narrow that it hurts to just put them on. Even shoes that I walked and ran in just 6 months ago. Even the wide shoes that carried me through the past decade or more. They’re all too narrow.
I couldn’t do any of this without the support of my family and friends.
I’ll stop there.
I still have work to do, and it’s time for bed.
One final brag: the friend who cheered me on at the end came in 9th overall in the Iron Woman/Iron Man standings, and his family won the Family Award, given to the family with the most runners at each race, cumulative. I’m proud of them all.
Until next time, be excellent to each other.
This was originally posted on my Wordpress blog.