Thursday, April 26, 2007

My first race report..


Wow...over a week since my last post. I did spend the last part of the week getting ready for this. I then spent the first part of this week recovering from this. Yikes, when they said the trail run was a little hilly they mean it. The total feet of climbing in the two 7.75 mile loops was 1845 feet.

To put that Gar-Stat in perspective, that is close to the same number of climbing feet that I do on my HILLY 62 MILE BIKE ride out to Watertown, Minnesota and back!

Trimama and I took the new Tracker over to the race early in the morning, met up with Marz Racer who was preparing to blaze the course. Followed by an Iron Jenny sighting. More like a sighting because when the I J is in her native setting she can be found fluttering in butterfly like movements amongst all her friends/fans (usually half the race participants). I also caught up with my local training buddy Tri-Jeff.

Note that Trimama and I are not satisfied with that name for him. Tri-Jeff is known for his training intensity and also having a German heritage he trains like a pre-Berlin wall east German Olympian (no steroids though), therefore he shall be called Tri-Sour-Kraut.

Anyhow, TSK ran with me most of the race, which was quite enjoyable. The day was overcast and cool with little wind, which I found perfect for running. The course does not have a flat section...anywhere. Not kidding, not one part of the course was even close to horizontal. After enjoying rolling hills on grass for the first several miles we entered a single track, jagged/leathery section which winded up 300 feet to the top of the fricken ski hill! At which point you were to run straight down the steep hill, no, not sideways or swithbacking...straight down. I think this is the section of the course which took my IT band and beat it like a bongo drum. You were given the privilege of completing this ascent twice being that this was a two loop course. Did I mention we climbed 1800 feet in total..oh I did well just a reiteration. The rest of the course ran through beautiful wooded areas on wood chip trails.

My final time was just barely under 10 minute miles, 9:59 to be exact for the race. I had some real problems at the beginning to the second loop because my IT seized up. Which sucks. I've done all kinds of work on my ITBS problems, but have found that if pushed to hard they can't hold up. So lots of rest is on order right now, which works well with the idea of tapering for Wildflower.

Post race recovery for me was far less about sore joints(other then IT) because the trail was quite soft. The sorest part of my body was my butt, which got quite the workout climbing those hills.

9 days to Wildflower. I am so looking forward to this weekend. What a blast to hang with so many different bloggy friends.

Speaking of metro-sexual, Kahuna is planning on quite the hosting day on Wednesday for Trimama, Ironjenny and myself. Should be fun as long as we keep it all legal.

Speaking of legal, my Flash-Point equipped Tri bike should be illegal. The bike is too young to be such porn. Pictures coming soon.

Tac out

8 comments:

Bigun said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brent Buckner said...

Race report! Woo woo!

Per Wildflower and "should be fun as long as we keep it all legal", I'm sure that Superpounce would condone an exception.

Enjoy the taper and best wishes for ITB healing.

Iron Pol said...

You're never getting out of the penalty box with talk like that.

Bigun said...

VERY HAIRY. I would have thought the great and powerful Taconite Boy would be freshly shorn for any race, big or small - but then I realized that us mere mortal earthlings have yet to devise a follicle eliminator strong enough to de-pant the TB! Recover from your battle well, oh mighty one - live to fight again in the California Sun.

greyhound said...

HAIR PANTS! HAIR PANTS!

Does your bike even let you mount her with stumps like that???? ewwww.

TriDaddy said...

Great time for a hilly trail run. Nice socks by the way!!!

Comm's said...

geesh, felt like I already read this stuff on other blogs, oh wait I did. I like the thing about your bike being to young for porn.

Bikes Gone Wild.

Avery B said...

Hi great readingg your blog