Easy Gait

Another race crossed off my list of races to do before I die. The Mt. Washington Road race was saturday morning and I was foolish enough to enter. What else would you rather do on a beautiful Saturday than run uphill for 7.6 miles at an average grade of 11.5% climbing 4,650 vertical feet? Exactly my point, anything but that, but there I was. The other fun thing about this race was it also doubled as an automatic bid for the world mtn running team so there were some pretty hardcore mtn runners. There were also a lot of other local New England talent who race the roads a lot were entered so the field was very deep once the serious mtn runners took off into the atmosphere.

This race was like nothing I have ever done. It was an absolute grind. There is no relief anywhere on the course. There the first 200m which is flat, one parking lot that is pseudo flat for 30 meters and one section after mile 6 that is not quite as steep as the rest of the mtn for 50 meters, but the rest just pure uphill.You can see the results here. No pictures yet but I am certain they will convey the difficulty of this particular race. I felt like hammered crap at halfway point. When I saw that sign that said halfway, I had serious doubts about being able to complete the climb. I just felt worn out the entire time. One thing that didn't help is I had a an episode on my thursday run involving a low branch and my eyeball which resulted in an abrasion on my cornea and a midnight trip to the ER to have the eyeball fixed up because it was swollen shut from the irritation the abrasion was causing. I looked like a weeping little pansy. The good new from that trip was they took all the stats and my resting heart rate was at 44 which surprised me with the work I have been doing as of late. It was a lot more painful than I thought it would be and it made for a horrible nights sleep and a horribly unproductive day of work the next day. Then the drive to Easton NH where we crashed at Mr Hurst's sweet mountain house. I want to write a whole recap of the race but am getting sleepy and it is time for bed. Tomorrow if I have the time.

Here is the data from the race.

.9 6.30.42
2 8.04.40
3 8.44.88
HW 31.25.08
4 8.56.33
5 9.18.91
6 9.08.19
7 9.27.44
7.6 1.06.01.03

Those last two miles were a real blast let me tell you.the last 50 meters of the race were up a wall. If you reached out your hand you would be touching pavement.

That's all I got.