Rope Mill Adventure Run

Today was an adventure. Literally. For the past two months or so, I've been signed up to be in this 10-mile trail run. Naturally, I haven't trained for it very well. This time my excuse is work, which I find to be an almost valid excuse. I have trained some, just not enough to be ready for ten miles of trail running.

I woke up early this morning and drove up to the town of Woodstock to Rope Mill Park, an area developed for mountain bikers and dirt bikers (although my co-worker Josh tells me you can't ride there much anymore because of all the runners). Checked into the race, noticed the sign that said transferring between the 10 mile and 4 mile races was not allowed on race day. (Dang it. I would be able to survive a four mile run.) Then I had a while to hang out, stretch, admire the park.

We started on a concrete path and ran on that for about half a mile, then continued on a gravel road, then a single-file dirt trail. It was kind of nice to be in a single file, because then I was running with people who I thought were about my pace, without the awkwardness of "Mind if I run with you?" As usual, I started at a moderate pace and went with that for a while before deciding that I would actually prefer to go a bit faster, so I passed and left that group. From then on, I would follow behind someone for a while, and eventually pass them. And got passed myself by randomly fast runners who were behind me. It was fun. Lots of up and downs, but never any huge hills. The trails were mostly clear of rocks and trip-able roots, which was really nice. Because we were running through the trees, it never got super hot. Here's a map of our course.

Gotta love switchbacks!

Around mile 3, we had the pleasure of crossing the river, which they told us was only knee-deep. I suppose if you kept to the shallowest part it would've been only knee-deep, but there was a large number of slow-moving people there, so I went off to the side and ended up wet to my waist. But I passed a bunch of people, so that was cool. Shortly thereafter the course routed us down onto a creek bed for a little ways. Not a dry creek bed, although I suppose if you were really trying you could make it through without getting additionally wet. I didn't try to do that, and passed a couple more people. Fun fun fun. Next we had to "scramble over boulders"...for about 20 feet. Again, passing people. I don't know why they stop running just when it gets fun.

Just a little further on was the shoe change drop. The ten-mile runners had the option of sending a spare pair of shoes and socks in a bag with volunteers to change into after finishing the water portion. I considered not stopping to change shoes, but the wetness and sand didn't seem pleasant for the next 7 miles. So that took somewhere between 3-5 minutes. A lot of the people I had passed on the fun parts passed me again.

After that, we were more spread out, and I was rarely with someone for very long. I thought running by myself I'd have difficulties pushing myself to run instead of walk, but it really wasn't bad. I did walk some, but never for very long (apparently Ms. Ryan's insistence on only allowing us to walk for ten steps at a time has stayed with me for the past ten years, although I went with the more reasonable "30 seconds" rule. By keeping walking times short, you don't lose your pace so much). This is when I really appreciated having my iPod and armband with me to run. I'm afraid I've gotten attached to having either music or talking as I run longer distances.

There were no mileage markers along the trail, so when I came up on the concrete path that we had started on, I was rather surprised - I'd expected at least another mile still. However, I was perfectly happy to merely run the half mile to the finish line. Couldn't make myself go very fast on that part, but no one passed me, either. Hooray, finish! Time 1:41. That's an average of ten-minute miles, but with the shoe change, it means I was running faster than that. That's a really great pace for me! I can't wait to do a trail half-marathon in November.