Tuesday, January 26, 2010
NJ Winter Trail Series 10K
Ran the 10k at the 1st NJ Winter Trail Series event this weekend in Lewis Morris Park in Morristown. It was two loops of a 5k (really, 3-mile) course. A ran the first loop fairly hard and then waited for a friend and ran 2 miles with him and then ran the last (downhill) mile as hard as possible. Held off a 26-year old over the last 100 yards to the finish. Felt good to run hard again.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Watchung Winter (Not Quite) Ultra
A little over one year ago I came across the 1st Annual Watchung Winter Ultra (WWU) trail run while searching for trail races in New Jersey. Never having done a trail race I wanted to give it a try. The WWU came in two flavors: marathon and 50k. Both option way too long for me but they were both based on a main 10-mile loop course through the Watchung Reservation near where I grew up and that sounded like it would be within my range. When the day came, however, it had snowed a good amount the night before, was really cold and windy, and not having pre-registered or arranged to go with anybody else I opted to stay in bed.
This year I convinced a couple others to come along with me and do one loop of the course and so despite the snow and cold I got myself up around 5:00 a.m. and headed out to meet up with my group. The run had grown tremendously from the 1st year and there were something like 170 or so people registered. From the results page it looks like around 125 made it to the starting line... it was a pretty big group for 8:00 a.m. and 19 degrees on a Saturday morning in January in New Jersey.
The course started with a long downhill section over icy "steps" and other icy terrain. The first mile or so was pretty slow going. After that, though, the footing was much better, though still snowy trail going up and down quite frequently. The 10-mile loop turned out to be around 10.7. One of my friends had it at around 1,300 feet of up and down on his 705. I held things together pretty good for 8 miles running just behind one of my friends. After that, though I was good and bonked. Had to stop to stretch and recover several times in the last 2 miles and finished in 1:57 or so. I was guessing it would be between 1:50 and 2 hours. So I was pretty happy with the time given that I was sick between Thanksgiving and Xmas and didn't run at all and had just a couple of weeks of very easy running under my belt since then.
Overall it was a great experience. My fingers were quite cold for the first mile or so but then warmed up fine. At the end I took off my knit cap to find that it was encrusted with what seemed like a pound of ice -- but I hadn't even noticed that while running. I had so much fun, in fact, that yesterday I went out for 8 miles through the trails near my house. I've lived in the same place for 10 years and had never run those trails before. I guess I've got the trail bug now.
And I should mention that 10.7 miles is the furthest I've ever run. Ever. Maybe next year I'll be ready to do the whole Ultra thing. We'll see.
This year I convinced a couple others to come along with me and do one loop of the course and so despite the snow and cold I got myself up around 5:00 a.m. and headed out to meet up with my group. The run had grown tremendously from the 1st year and there were something like 170 or so people registered. From the results page it looks like around 125 made it to the starting line... it was a pretty big group for 8:00 a.m. and 19 degrees on a Saturday morning in January in New Jersey.
The course started with a long downhill section over icy "steps" and other icy terrain. The first mile or so was pretty slow going. After that, though, the footing was much better, though still snowy trail going up and down quite frequently. The 10-mile loop turned out to be around 10.7. One of my friends had it at around 1,300 feet of up and down on his 705. I held things together pretty good for 8 miles running just behind one of my friends. After that, though I was good and bonked. Had to stop to stretch and recover several times in the last 2 miles and finished in 1:57 or so. I was guessing it would be between 1:50 and 2 hours. So I was pretty happy with the time given that I was sick between Thanksgiving and Xmas and didn't run at all and had just a couple of weeks of very easy running under my belt since then.
Overall it was a great experience. My fingers were quite cold for the first mile or so but then warmed up fine. At the end I took off my knit cap to find that it was encrusted with what seemed like a pound of ice -- but I hadn't even noticed that while running. I had so much fun, in fact, that yesterday I went out for 8 miles through the trails near my house. I've lived in the same place for 10 years and had never run those trails before. I guess I've got the trail bug now.
And I should mention that 10.7 miles is the furthest I've ever run. Ever. Maybe next year I'll be ready to do the whole Ultra thing. We'll see.
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