Back in January I decided to enter a couple of races for something to aim for. First one of the year was this 20 mile trail race in the Tillamook Forest. Since January I've built up (fairly quickly) to regular 50 + mile weeks building a good strong base. Since I had never ran in a race before or even with other people I decided it was a good idea to start with a 20 mile trail race to get used to that before doing anything longer. Regular road racing is of no interest to me, trails are where I really enjoy running for hours on end with nature and in nature. I have also signed up for a 50k trail race in October, and plan to do some other longer distances too.
I ran the course earlier in the year to get a feel for the route, and from that run I decided on a target of less than 3 hrs 58 minutes and with a stretch goal of 3 hrs 30, with the latter being optimistic.
I arrived at the trail at 7am and checked in and collected my race number, then headed back to the car to have my usual pre-long run breakfast of porridge with dried fruit and home made coconut milk All organic of course.
Number 449
The race kicked off right on time, and somehow I ended up really close to the front and felt the pace was pretty easy going, so things were looking and feeling good. I didn't want to end up too far back and get stuck and lose time, and at the same time didn't want to hold back too many others that were much faster if I was too far ahead, but I held my ground near the front end and cruised along for the start.
There was a group of photographers doing a great job over the course and I appeared in a few of the pictures. Credit to them for the great job! https://www.pursuitfilms.com/
Me heading down from the first aid station down a 6 mile stretch.
(photo credit: pursuitfilms.com)
I met and ran with some friendly people, had a great time and enjoyed the run. I was feeling great for most of the race making sure not to get sucked up in a pack going faster than I should and suffering badly later in the race.
The route was all trail, with pretty much all of it run able with just a few really short sections that needed power hiked up.
This was in the last couple of miles.
(photo credit: pursuitfilms.com)
By mile 14 still with 2 and a bit miles of steep trail climbing still to go I decided to push the pace and get somewhere between my goal times. The picture above was pretty close to the end when I was feeling a little wear from the last thee miles down steep hills over 1,000 feet and going pretty fast. This is about mile 18.5 of 20.
Elevation profile
I finished strong feeling tired but good. My time was 3:38:33, so only 8 and a half minutes off my stretch goal, so I am really happy with that result.
Looking a the results I came in 25th overall out of 155 finishers. I had hopped to be somewhere middle of the pack and made it much closer to the front than I ever expected, so overall a great result.
Fill details of the results are here: https://ultrasignup.com/results_event.aspx?did=50051
The website for the race is here: http://www.runtheburn.com/
Daybreak racing done a fantastic job hosting this event, and a huge thanks to them for all the hard work in organising this.
