Run to Win

This week last year centered on racing, covering distances from the 100 meter to the 50 kilometer.

• First, Asafa Powell set a new 100 meter world record in Rieti, Italy with his time of 9.74 seconds. He has since run faster than that, but no longer holds the record.
• Second, the Back Cove Weekly Race Series finished up. 2007 was the first year that I was one of the sponsors, and I managed to win free shoes for a year by having the fastest 6 times on the course. I only won by an average of 1 second per race!
• Third, I wrote about my first ultramarathon experience at the Pisgah 50k Mountain Race. I had quite a few articles about the race, so anybody that is thinking of running might want to take a look through. The race is either today or tomorrow this year, and I wasn’t able to make it back. Hopefully next year.
  1. Pisgah 50k Trail Race (2007) - Pre-Race Review
  2. Pisgah 50k Trail Race (2007) - Race Review
  3. Pisgah 50k Trail Race (2007) - Post-Race Review
  4. Pisgah 50k/23k Trail Races - 2007 Race Results
• This week 2 years ago also saw the Back Cove 5k Race Series finishing up, that time with Mike Caiazzo and Lindsey Davis taking the series honors. I won the last race, and placed 3^rd overall. I added on to my icing series from a few months earlier by explaining how to ice sensitive areas on your body such as your eyes or testicles, and I reviewed Breaking Away, a movie about cyclist in the 70s. On the news front, New Jersey began testing kids for steroids in an attempt to catch them young.
• This week three years ago, I pointed to some resources about deadlifting, namely a video on how not to deadlift and one on proper deadlift form.

Anybody in New England that is still looking for something to do on Memorial Day weekend should look towards making a trip to New Gloucester, Maine, to participate in the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge.

There are 4 races along with volunteering opportunities. The 25k and 50k are returning for their 3^rd incarnation, and the 4km canicross race is returning for it’s second running. (When was the last time you ran a race tied to your dog?) For those of you are looking for a bigger challenge, the weekend is now also hosting a 50 mile race.

The courses are all located on the beautiful Pineland Farms campus and are made up of soft rolling hills. The trails are not technical in the least bit and are split between fields and dirt paths. There is ample course support available, and what will likely be one of the better BBQ parties of the weekend is located at the finish line. There should be plenty of free food and beer for everybody, volunteers included, with at least a dozen people committed to bringing the good stuff like cookies and brownies.

Speaking of volunteers, more are needed. If you are not up to the challenge of running the race, volunteering can be just as fun and rewarding. You may not get a silver (50k) or gold (50 mile) cow bell for finishing, but you do get $5 in Maine Track Club bucks and access to the party. There are also some volunteer positions available that will still allow you to run, especially if you are running one of the shorter races that start later in the morning.

For more information, check out these links:

• Pineland Farms Trail Challenge home page
• Remaining volunteer opportunities
• 2007 Photos
• Canicross race information

Early results are in! There were 12 runners: 3 women, 8 men, and 1 dog.

(Click here to continue reading…)

The Trail Monsters are putting on a “Fat Ass” 50k at Bradbury Mountain on Sunday, March 2^nd at 7:00. Anybody in the Southern Maine area that is interested in a fun run should think about coming out for it. The vast majority of the run will be outside of the park (click here for the map) following the snowmobile trails and the power lines. The course is consists of a 10.5 mile loop, so there are options for 1, 2 or 3 loops. I’m planning on running 2 loops of the course.

I’ve run the majority of the course before and conditions can vary depending upon how much snow we get this week and how many snowmobiles are out to pack it down between snowfall and “race” morning. I ran out on the majority of the course this morning and the footing wasn’t too bad for the most part, but still quite obviously slicker and more effort than running on the roads. The race starts at 7:00 in the morning, and you can read about the course at: Trail Monster Running » Bradbury “Fat Ass” Test Run

For those who are unfamiliar with Fat Asses, it’s basically a “race” that has no entry fee, no prizes, and folks bring their own goodies for the aid station(s). In this case, they’ll probably designate somebody’s vehicle as the aid table and just put all the goodies there - something like the back of a pickup. For me, it’ll be a long training run with hopefully a few more people than I’m used to running with on the weekends.

The Pisgah 50k Mountain Trail Race was this past Sunday, September 9, 2007. I really enjoyed the experience and will provide a few details about the race now that I’ve had a few days to think about the whole thing. Yesterday, I talked about my experiences during the race. Today I’d like to talk about what happened after the race.

The first order of business, of course, is that the race results are finally available. I officially crossed the finish line in 4:27:37, which means that during the race I stopped to chat with aid station volunteers for 5 minutes and 9 seconds.

Finishing at Pisgah

It has been a while since I have run a race that involved tearing off a tab from your bib, and it has been even longer since that tab was used on the results board itself. Not that this was a problem! The workers at the finish line were all cheering, and a couple of the people that finished ahead of me were also clapping their hands as I came in.

My legs were pretty sore at this point, but I felt surprisingly well. I walked around a little while and finished off my bottle of water while I sent my wife to the truck for some dry clothes and more nourishing refreshments.

The awards at the race consisted of (Click here to continue reading…)

 The Pisgah Mountain Trail Races were this past Sunday, September 9, 2007. The race results are finally available online and are copied below. I have also included some relevant links to information about the race.

• Skip to 50k Results
• Skip to 23k Results
• Official Home Page for Pisgah 50k/23k
• Pisgah 50k/23k Course Map
• Pisgah 50k/23k Elevation Profile (pdf download)

(Click here to continue reading…)

Update: Click here for the 2007 race results of both the 50k and the 23k.
The Pisgah 50k Mountain Trail Race was this past Sunday, September 9, 2007. I really enjoyed the experience and will provide a few details about the race now that I’ve had a few days to think about the whole thing. The other day, I talked about what led up to the race and covered what happened before the gun went off. Today I’d like to talk about the race itself.

The Starting Line at Pisgah

The start of the race was scheduled for 8:45 a.m. At 8:43 a.m. it began to rain again. The race was pretty low tech, so the start consisted of a couple of stopwatches and some voice commands. As much as I love the Maine Track Club’s cannon, it was nice to not be deafened at the start of the race.

A bunch of 23k runners were clustered at the front of the starting line. The crowd of them took off with the “gun” (also known as somebody yelling “Go!”) and hurried to the front of the pack. I hung back a little since this was a new experience for me from both a trail racing perspective and a distance perspective.

The Start at Pisgah

The first mile or so was along paved roads which rolled steadily up towards some carriage roads. Once you got onto the carriage roads, there was a steep descent to get onto the trail itself. The drop was probably about 400 feet over the span of a third of a mile or so.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Update: Click here for the 2007 race results of both the 50k and the 23k.
The Pisgah 50k Mountain Trail Race was this past Sunday, September 9, 2007. I really enjoyed the experience and will provide a few details about the race now that I’ve had a few days to think about the whole thing.

Discovering Pisgah

Finding anything out about the race is not particularly easy. It is a fairly well promoted race in terms of getting in front of the people likely to run it, but actually finding anything out about it is another matter. I managed to find two race reviews. Ben Nephews wrote one after setting the course record in 2004, and Ryan Prentiss wrote one after the 2006 race. Everywhere else that I looked, everybody said that they heard that it was a really good race but had never actually run it before.

I tried to email the race director some basic questions about the race, such as what the trails were like, how easy it was for spectators to get around and whether there was any camping in the area. I never received a response, so after 3 weeks I emailed again. That also got no response. I gave up and figured that I would just show up and see what happens. It turns out that the man who checks the email address died 2 weeks before the race, so I can not really fault them for not being very responsive.

Getting to Pisgah

(Click here to continue reading…)