Race Report: 2011 11K Paris Mountain Trail Race

Results (based on Guntime):
1h 26m 56s
Overall 170/216




Instead of handing out t-shirts, they gave out patches this time.
Visors next time, please! ;-)

Pre-Race:
They ran a special on this race at the day of the Green Valley Road Race, so I was able to sign up for 10 bucks... SWEET. Coming off Mt Mitchell training and "racing" with a streak of bad runs... Not quite so sweet. But since I was signed up, I would suck it up and do it anyways... But easy! While it was a race, I was not feeling it and so, I would just treat it like a nice trail outing with 200 of my closest friends.

Got up at around 6am, had a small breakfast and we headed out the door at a little to 7am. Paris Mountain State Park is close to the house, so that's always good. Once we were there, picked up our numbers and our patch and good our stuff together. While Terry used the time for a short warm-up, I was yapping the time away by talking to my running friends. Actually, I was still yapping when everyone else all of a sudden started running... Oops.



Thanks Flemming for the pics!

Race:

It was pretty much the usual for me on these races, this was my third time doing this particular distance of the trail running series, but they switched the 11K now to May, while it used to be in November. I actually prefer having the 15K distance in November in the future, so all is good. Nevertheless, the conditions were miserable... hot and humid. After two days of rain, the temps hardly cooled, so it once again felt like running in a steam sauna.

I started out easy in the paved section and then just held on for dear life to stay with the group that I was in for the next mile or so. Once my body warmed up, I was able to push it a little more and pass a couple of people, got passed by some other people and leapfrogged with some. I didn't want to walk until I hit the first lake and traffic was backing up at the steps anyways so I had to slow down... Which I welcomed very much. The dizziness that set in right after slowing down didn't feel to great and I just pushed myself to keep on moving, because I know from past experience, if I stop once I am dizzy, I am toast... So while I was dragging my butt up the steps and down the other side, I tried to get as much water (thanks race vest) as possible into me to try to recover. As usual, I spend a lot of mile three walking. It's the death march up Sulphur and no matter how often you do this climb, it just doesn't get better.... yay to a 20 minute split! ;-) Once on Firetower trail, I started running again and soon got to chat with the two runners in the picture above. We stuck together for a little while, before I stopped to hose off another runner that took a spill (thanks race vest).  Kanuga and Brissy Ridge is sort of a rolling trail and I kept on taking frequent walk breaks on the uphills and ran the downhills and flats. I was glad when we got to the upper parking lot... Just one really steep short left and then it's sorta downhill from there. First it's a very steep (quad and knee busting) downhill and then there are a little rollers all the way to the finish. I made myself run the rest of the race, even though I wasn't feeling it... I really do have pacing issues a lot, so I allowed myself to slow down, but didn't allow myself to walk.

One side note: Never be fooled by girls in pink running skirts! A girl was passing me on the last steep hill and she blasted down that really steep section. It took two switchbacks and I never saw her again. That was pretty amazing to see!



About to finish!



Post Race:

I was greeted at the finish line by my husband, who finished 20 minutes ahead of me (what's new) and some relay team goons. Grabbed a bagel and waited on the final goon to arrive before heading back home. Once I had a cell phone signal, I checked my race page from the past, to see how I did compared to previous years and was surprised and happy, that I was just two minutes slower this time around... Despite heat/ humidity and hardly any running lately. I'll take it.