Pere Marquette Trail Run 2011

Ahhhhh, December, we all know what that means, time for the Pere Marquette trail run. You could not be a slacker if you wanted to run the race this year, the race filled in just over 6 hours. Good thing for me I entered at 5 am and got in. The way things are going, next year, I will need to be at the computer at midnight when registration opens. Funny, you would think being the Vice President of the Metro Tri Club, I would have an automatic in, but not true, I have to give it my best shot and try to get in before it closes just like everyone else. If I didn’t get in, I guess I could threaten the president, Mike Wever, or something, but he is a tough cookie when it comes to this stuff, so threatening may not work. I think the next time I can get a photo of him looking really bad, I will just keep it as my ticket in, just in case I don’t make the cut one year.

So once I was in, I started some hard core hill training with my friend Jenny, she was kicking my butt and making me run hills when I really didn’t want to.

Jenny on the rock steps

My goal was to try and run not a PR, but something close to one. I really wanted to run a 1:24, I have run this course in 1:19 before, but I knew I wasn’t in good enough shape to pull that off this year. Along with the hill work we were doing once a week, I started running the PM course every couple weeks. My first training run was 1:33, then a few weeks later, another 1:33, then a 1:30 and my 4th time on the course a 1:27. I was feeling good and was pretty confident that I could make my goal of 1:24 if the conditions were right.

Well the best laid plans never seem to work out, the week after I ran the 1:27 I broke my tailbone by sliding down a muddy hill and hitting a rock. Yeah I know, it’s pretty frustrating to be on target for a goal and then get injured. Even though I had hopes of making it back injury free before the race, once again, I was wrong. I really hate to admit that I was wrong and some doctor who doesn’t even run was right, but in this case I have too.

So when PM came around I was still nursing the tailbone, but I didn’t want to miss the race for two reasons, first because I love the race and I just don’t want to miss it and second because to win the coveted Godzilla of the year award, I needed to finish PM. I didn’t have to finish fast, I just had to finish.

Race day came and I picked up Russ, a new Team Godzilla member and we headed out to PM. Russ was going to take picture during the race and checkout the course to see if he wanted to do it next year. (see all Russ’s picture here) I had to get to the lodge early because I was distributing vest before the race.

Robin and Krystal

Giving out vest is a great job because everyone gets one, so I got to see just about everyone I know, when they picked up their vest. It was really kind of fun, and of course I heard butt jokes from everyone. I’m actually the butt of all jokes now.

Mark S got me this shirt for Christmas

The gang handing out vest

It was time for the race to start, so I headed out to the starting line with Keith and Chuck, who were both working the vest distribution with me and racing also.

Keith in Motion

Chuck on the rock steps

Of course, they were in much earlier waves than I was in. I was in wave 13, I have never in my life been in a wave greater than 7. In fact, earlier in the week when I found out that I was in wave 13, my pride was hurt and my spirit was broken. I went as far as too yell at Mike Wever, who sets up the waves. I said “Mike, I know I have a broken tailbone and will be slow, but come on, WAVE 13”. He was very apologetic and said, he didn’t know how that happened, we figured it out, the previous year I ran with a friend who was injured and didn’t want to run alone so we just ran it for fun and the time was pretty darn slow, that brought my average down and that’s how I ended up in wave 13. Mike did offer to put me in wave 1, but I declined. I thought it would be better to be in wave 13 and be able to pass people then to be passed the entire run.

I still like Mike even after he put me in WAVE 13

The race started and before I knew it, Mike was calling for wave 13 and off I went, I was actually up front in my group and didn’t really get passed by very many people, I even passed some people in earlier waves. My tailbone was hurting pretty bad on the uphills, yeah I know, everything seems to be an uphill at PM, but I was not stopping, I just wanted to run the race and cross the finish line on my own two feet. I did walk a couple times, but mostly because the runners in front of me were walking and there was no way around them. Of course, that was not the issue on the rock steps, I walked those because if I didn’t I would have had a heart attack. And wouldn’t you know it, the rock stairs is where Russ and Patrick were standing with the cameras. I yelled no taking pictures of me walking, but you know that is just what they did.


Just before the end of the race, I saw Jim D on trail and he yelled “how’s your butt” I said it was going to finish the race and just then a girl behind me said “are you Robin”, I said yes, we had never met, but I had two registration transfers that I sold to her and now the reason she knew who I was, was because of my butt. See didn’t I tell you how funny the whole tailbone thing has become.

I soon crossed the finish line to the cheering of friends and strangers, it had been the perfect day and the best possible run for me. There is nothing I would have rather been doing than racing PM on this beautiful December day surrounded by such great friends.

After the race I stood around talking to friends. I saw Wendy D, she had a great race even with a bum ankle that she had injured badly just recently and she like me, was just happy to be out running.

Wendy

Since Russ was at the finish line taking photos, it was like having my own personal photographer, he snapped photos of me and many of my friends, while we told race stories and No they aren’t like fish stories, I really did do that triple lindy and land on my feet then jump over a deer crossing the trail, while eating a Honey Stinger waffle and getting a drink from my Ultimate Direction water bottle.

The Gang Hanging out

Mike, Robin, Bill, Chuck

Robin and Kate G

Robin and Mike A

Robin and Mike H

Lost Valley Training Day

I’m training for the Double Chubb 50K in April, so now is the time that I need to get in all my long training runs so that I will be ready for the race. Every other weekend from now until the race, I will be running a long run. Lucky for me a bunch of my friends are also training for spring trail races. Today was a long run at Lost Valley. One loop of Lost Valley starting at the parking lot is 11 miles. Some of the bunch planned on one lap, while others planned on two. I had planned on two laps, but as always plans don’t always work out.

We met at the lot at the top of the Lost Valley hill at 8 am. We were waiting for Mike, but he thought we were starting at 8:30 so he wasn’t there. Emily gave him a quick call and he said to take off he would catch us on the trail. So we snapped a quick picture and were off.



We headed down the hill and toward the creek, we all made it across the creek without falling in. The snow was much deeper than I had expected. I didn’t have my gaiters on because I didn’t think the snow was so deep, that was a mistake. The group broke up a bit at this point, but at every intersection as I would come upon those in front of me I would be bombarded with snowballs.



We would also mark the direction with arrows made of sticks, this was so the group behind us would know which direction to go.



We were putting an arrow down about 2 miles from the start when Mike caught up with us, he was running like a gazelle.



As we passed the pond, Pat yelled take a picture of the pond, so I did.



We took off again, Bill and I were talking and the group sort of got away from us. We had to make some quick moves to catch up.



I started to fall off and finally lost the front group at about mile 8. My legs just wouldn’t go. My brain kept saying “Go you can do it” and my legs kept saying “no way, you can’t make me”. I was really starting to struggle. As I was running the last downhill before the finish, I saw someone coming up the hill and he had a snowball. It was my friend Mike, he was headed out for his first lap of the day. He didn’t hit me with the snowball. I talked to him for a minute and he said the group was just heading towards the parking lot, so they weren’t too far in front of me. I made it back to the parking lot and quickly ate a Honey Stinger Waffle and refilled my water bottle. We said our goodbyes to the people who only did the first lap and headed out for the second lap. Chuck, Patrick and me were going for a second lap and Kate met us to do a first lap.



When we made it to the intersection where you can take the short loop or long loop, I decided that I was having a really bad running day and was going to take the short loop, so I said my goodbyes and headed up the mile long climb. This was a real mistake, my legs just weren’t working and my quads were screaming trying to get through the snow. I was not having a good day. I stopped for a picture, thinking this would give me an excuse to stop.



So then it was back to running. I decided to try something new, a different running style, I needed to do something or I was going to be walking back to the finish. First though I stopped to puke and relieve myself. Then I started running like I had cross country skis on. Kind of shuffling my feet, this forces my body to use my butt muscles instead of my quad muscles. This should be easy for me since I have a LOT of junk in my trunk, it’s good strong junk, but still junk. This running style was working well for me, since I didn’t have to pick my feet up. My pace picked up and I started feeling better. After a few miles of this, I was felling guilty about taking the shorter loop, so since I was feeling better, I decided to head out on a third lap. I ran to the creek and jumped over it without getting my feet wet.



I ran up to the next trail intersection and then turned around and started back. I thought I might run into Mike, but never saw him. I headed back up the big hill and about half way up I decided to walk. My stomach started growling, I reached in my pocket for a HS Rocket Chocolate, and didn’t find one, I was sure I had put one in my pocket, but it wasn’t there. So I kept moving up the hill, thinking about food. When I got to the top of the hill and headed to the parking lot I heard someone behind me and it was Mike. We looked back and saw Chuck, then Patrick appeared at the top of the hill and soon after that Kate came in. So we all finished within 10 minutes of each other. I only ran 19 miles, not the 22 I had planned, but it felt like 25 miles. I’m glad it’s over. I sure hope the snow is gone for my next long run. Oh and when I got back to the car, my HS Rocket Chocolate bar was sitting on the seat of my van.

Lewis and Clark Trail Training Run 2011

It was a beautiful morning, 22 degrees with about 9 inches of snow on the ground. A perfect day to meet some friends and run some miles. The original plan was to run a lap at the Lewis & Clark Trail, near Weldon Springs, Missouri then take a short jog down the road and run a lap of the Lost Valley trail. The total distance would be around 22 miles. When we planned this run there was no snow in sight and the temperature was sticking above freezing. You know how training days seem to go, never by the plan and we just adjust to the conditions.

Adjust, that is exactly what we did. 5 of us met for the first lap, Mike, Nicole, Patrick, Chuck and Me. We started at 7 am just when it was starting to get light.



Surprisingly to us, there was another group of about 10 people also starting early. They were all hikers and I’m pretty sure it was a boy scout group. They took off, just a few minutes before us and we quickly passed them on the trail. We ran for a while and then stopped for a few scenic photo ops.





The trail was really nice and packed down, but it had some really icy spots where it had melted a bit and refroze. We slide around in a couple places without any falls. I turned around once and saw the guys doing something, but I have no idea what it was, I’m not sure it was legal though, I don’t think Patrick wanted to do it.



We took off again, when they finished whatever it was they were doing. It seemed like the run went pretty quick, but still not as fast as we run this trail during dry weather. We finished the 1st lap in 1:57.
We had planned for a second group to meet us for the Lost Valley loop, and they had been waiting for about 40 minutes. When we hit the parking lot, they were just getting ready to leave, we got there just in time. This is where we decided to switch up the plan a bit. It was really starting to snow hard and we weren’t sure of the conditions on the Lost Valley trail, so we made a decision to do a second lap of Lewis & Clark instead.

Off we ran passing many more people on the trail, more boy scouts, some runners, hikers and people walking their dogs. We even passes some runners we knew, everyone seemed to be out today. It was really fun running in the snow, the boys were up front having some fun and zilla made sure he was right in the middle of the fun.







We ran about 4 miles of the second lap, and saw that there was a rock ready to fall, and if it did, the entire hill was going to come down. It’s a good thing Patrick and Chuck are so strong.



After the super hero’s finished saving the day, we moved on and climbed hill after hill heading for the bluff. Val really made those hills look easy.





We made it to the bluff and went to the haunted point, as the legend goes, 5 runners came out to run one snowy day and while standing on the bluff they were blown into the river, their bodies never to be found. The legend says that if you are out running in the cold snowy weather you can sometimes see their ghosts. Low and behold as we looked out over the river, we saw them, I snapped a picture.



We decided to take a picture of our group on the same bluff, Chuck was afraid that we might seal our fate, by mocking the legend, so he took the picture, he thought he would be safe doing that.



So off we went, talking about if we could eat each others bodies if we found ourselves stranded in the woods with no food. Patrick said something about having a “handburger” for lunch, we were starting to think that Chuck was right about mocking the legend. Now we only had a couple miles to go, so at the last lookout we stopped for a photo of the 6, 2nd lap runners. Chuck, Patrick, Val, Jim, Doug, and Me, oh and Zilla too.



We headed back to the parking lot to finish up the 17 miles for those of us who did both laps, which was Me, Patrick and Chuck. I was toast by the end and really glad we didn’t shoot for the 22 miles, 17 in the snow was really tough. What is really funny though, we ran a negative split, the second lap was 1:55. It was really a great morning and running with the fluffy snow hitting us in the face the entire second lap was fantastic, even if we were covered in a layer of ice by the end. Dry clothes and the heater in the van blowing at full blast really made it all worth while.