horrible death averted!
May. 10th, 2009 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaI managed not to die horribly during the Telegraph Trail 10K, but it was a near thing. I am not sure who made the bone-headed decision to schedule this race to begin at 10 am (and then, 15 minutes late...), but it was 74 degrees, and sunny, and the course is unshaded desert and quite hilly - altogether a miserably, brutally hot experience. My calves began to cramp almost instantaneously when I started heading up the major ascent (Telegraph Hill) and my HR climbed faster than I did - I ended up walking quite a bit of this ascent, which was kind of a bummer. Then again, lots of others were walking it as well. I passed a few people but got passed by more.
Then the screaming Anasazi Descent, about 500 feet in half a mile. I used all my technical downhill skills on this one (i.e., "a more or less controlled plummet") and passed four people and somehow avoided going over the edge of the cliff or tripping over any of the rocks. After that, the course was mostly rolling, but mostly rolling uphill, damn it, and I drank a bunch of water and dumped the rest of it on myself and walked a little and ran a little until I finally got to the second summit and bombed downhill to the finish line.
Because of the winding and switchbacky nature of the course, my Garmin read low, although I wasn't sure by how much during the race. When it beeped 4 miles at me, I looked at the time - 50 minutes - and thought, shit, no way can I make it under an hour (which was my personal goal). Then after running another 5 minutes I recognized how close I was to the start/finish and thought, oh, maybe I can make it if I hit the afterburners! So I blasted the last (downhill) bit and made it in 58:07, not a fast time, but hey, I survived. Yay.
Then the screaming Anasazi Descent, about 500 feet in half a mile. I used all my technical downhill skills on this one (i.e., "a more or less controlled plummet") and passed four people and somehow avoided going over the edge of the cliff or tripping over any of the rocks. After that, the course was mostly rolling, but mostly rolling uphill, damn it, and I drank a bunch of water and dumped the rest of it on myself and walked a little and ran a little until I finally got to the second summit and bombed downhill to the finish line.
Because of the winding and switchbacky nature of the course, my Garmin read low, although I wasn't sure by how much during the race. When it beeped 4 miles at me, I looked at the time - 50 minutes - and thought, shit, no way can I make it under an hour (which was my personal goal). Then after running another 5 minutes I recognized how close I was to the start/finish and thought, oh, maybe I can make it if I hit the afterburners! So I blasted the last (downhill) bit and made it in 58:07, not a fast time, but hey, I survived. Yay.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-11 12:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-12 04:21 pm (UTC)