This was probably my best race ever...
Workouts and general mileage have gone alright since the underwhelming Thanksgiving 5k, but I wasn't expecting anything special at Mt. Hood - I knew it would be a fun race nonetheless. There was a great contingent of CSU runners, and it was my first XC race ever. We had two teams signed up for CSU consisting of Kevin, Terry, TomW, Andy, and Pat (Masters team) and another team of myself, Phil, TomD, and Alex (open team). So we had some fun inter-squad competition to look forward to as well.
Me, Tom, and Phil carpooled from Cambridge and met up with the rest of the CSU crew for a warm up, and we took a look at the first 2+ miles of the ~3.4 mile course. After stopping off at the car to change shoes, we took a quick look at the last half mile of the course. My takeaway from the warm up: hilly as crap, crazy cold but not too windy, and not great footing. After retreating to the clubhouse to do some light stretching and shed some layers, we went to the starting line.
The race went off, and quickly narrowed onto a cart path. I was caught behind a group of folks that went out at a full sprint - and I watched TomD haul ass ahead as he elected to bound along the edge of the cart path sneaking through the clusterfudge. I waited for the course to open up a bit before making an effort to catch up as I knew the course would bottle neck again shortly thereafter. Terry, Kevin, and Phil were within sight before ascending towards the tower, and the subsequent steep downhill.
TomD and I flew on the downhill to catch up with the group of three, and I kept my momentum going at the turnaround - I was not going to try and kill it up the freaking massive hill so I used my energy holding the quick pace before transitioning to what felt like a glacial crawl up the aforementioned freaking massive hill...anyways, I just churned the legs trying to avoid burning too much energy and we all stayed fairly close together. The course continued to roll along as we passed the mile marker, and I expected the others to start putting some distance on me - but I planned on holding on as long as I could.
The middle portion of the race was more of the same - hit the hills cautiously, let it fly on the downhills, and keep everyone in site. At about 2.5 miles the course had one more big downhill and I really opened up my stride to reel in Phil, Terry, Kevin, and another runner. I was pretty gassed, but I wasn't fading...
so I had that going for me, which was nice.
With about a half mile to go I was still hanging onto the back of the pack - we took a sharp turn around a tree, and Phil took a spill, but bounced up and recovered quickly. I expected Terry and Kevin to make a move, and I decided I would make an aggressive push before they had a chance to open up any sort of gap. So I surged ahead and moved to the front of the group for the first time all day.
Initially I thought to myself, "Kevin and Terry will pass me shortly", but I saw the final hill ahead and got a shot of confidence knowing that after that short steep hill was a downhill to the finish. So I kept pushing hard, and grunting in pain at any moderate incline on the course.
I was holding onto front position within the group of four (barely) as we approached the base of the final short steep hill. During warm ups my shoes had a difficult time with traction on this hill - so I focused on keeping my footing, tried to hold position...meanwhile my freaking quads were on fire. I was able to just barely stay in front as we crested the short hill and turned towards the final ~250 meters toward the finish. My legs were beat, but they had just enough juice to hang on.
I didn't win the race or anything (15th overall)...But I did finish as the top CSU runner - the first time that has happened - which easily qualifies this as likely my best race ever.
Note: It's always fun getting situated at the starting line and looking over and seeing a 2:14 marathoner...
