Northwest Trail Runs – Soaring Eagle Park 10 miler- another report from my guy

Last Thursday, Annie mentioned that there was a NW Trails run coming up on the weekend. I’ve never done one of these before, but was aware of them. So, heck, why not? I had some friends doing the 10 miler, which is what I signed up for too.

Morning of, I decided that I would ride to the race. I didn’t really have time for that, but decided to do it anyway. Turns out, that riding from Bellevue to central Sammamish both takes longer and requires a lot more hill-climbing than I expected. Suffice to say that I arrived at the race with 10mins to start, FULLY warmed-up! Taking in some nutrition at that point would have been a good idea, particularly since Annie sent me with some, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I picked up my number, locked up my bike/backpack, and met up with my friends.

The course (map) was pretty fun, and varied. It included some trails that were 4-5 meters across and others that were <1m across, flat areas and significant climbs and descents, and a lot of mud! The race organizers stated during the pre-race talk that our feet would get wet and dirty. He was right. My shoes are still a disaster. I should probably think about cleaning them.

As stated, I’ve never done a trail run before, at least not since XC in high-school. I attempted to run XC in University (more on that in a bit), but was injured. Anyway, running on single-track trails requires a different style of running than track/road. I figured it out during the race, and look forward to taking advantage of that for next time. I can see that folks that are really good at trail running can distance themselves from the crowd more than their fitness-level would normally allow on the road. I wouldn’t say that I’m a super-great trail-runner, so largely relied on the fitness aspect. As evidence of that, I turned my ankle during the run. I let out some choice words for the forest at that point, and had to hobble-jog for about a minute before I could resume my pace. My ankle was happy to remind me of that later that evening ;)

My favorite part of the race was heading down a really long and steep-ish hill. As I headed down the hill, I saw the first place guy passing by me the other way. I then hit flat earth and soon headed up a super steep hill, which was fortunately not nearly as long. The guy in front of me walked up part of it. Just as quickly as we got up that steep hill, we came back down another side of it, were back on the flat part and then had to climb back up that really long hill again. I saw the same guy again, ~15s ahead of me.

Later, I passed (~ 8 mile mark) the guy I saw on those two hills. I continued to push forward as hard as I could. I was starting to lose energy at this point, but largely kept up the pace. The last bit was pretty hard since it was slightly up-hill and largely through deep mud. I also had no intention of getting passed. Soon enough, I saw the “800m left” sign. At that point, I gave 90% of what I had left for those last 800m. I managed to pass through in 3^rd place. Woohoo.

At that point, it was fun to watch my friends come in, and cheer them through the finish line. Great work folks.

Next, I had to get myself home. Wow. My legs were done. I haven’t felt that kind of fatigue in my legs, pretty much ever. I love it when your legs yell back at you “don’t do this; we’ve had enough today!” Oh well, they got the climbing on the way home anyway, and eventually gave up on the yelling.

I mentioned something earlier about University XC. I didn’t run it, but Annie did. I ran track, and spent a fair bit of time with the XC team. Unfortunately, we learned this past week that our XC coach, Terry Goodenough, died (super untimely) of complications from routine surgery. Wow! RIP Terry. We’re really sorry to see you go.