Summer of Trails

The focus of the summer of 2014 was getting more and more trail (training) experience. Coming off the 50K and being banged up things progressed slow. Luckily the injury seemed to allow some training fairly soon after the race and pain only lingered for roughly a month (could have been a lot worst). I've explored so many great mountain trails and climbs this summer with probably close to 75% of my training being on trails. Below is strava links to just a few of what turned out to be my favorites. There is no shortage of hilly forest dirt roads and trails in this county as well as Black Bears. I saw in total 17 Black Bears from the start of June to the end of August while running.

Buffalo Mountain
Battle of Camp Allegheny (Old Pike)
Snowshoe Mountain (Road)
Green Bank Trail
RT 66 to Linwood (Road)
FR 757
FR 25/4
Gaudineer Knob(Virgin Spruce Forest)

As for racing, the injury did set me back on going after any trail races hard. But I did jump in 2 in which I used one as a vacation long run and the other as a hard workout.

First up was Seashore Summer Trail Half Marathon at First Landing Park in Virginia Beach. My original plan was to race this half as there was a few guys with sub 1:10 road half marathon best entered in the field. Based off my personal half best of 1:07:48 and my quickly improving trail experience I think I would have been the favorite going in had I been able to race it. But it was just 3 short weeks after the 50K and the injury was still lingering so I logged the race at a easier trail long run effort and still finished 3rd overall. It was a great experience as it started the vacation off with some good trail miles and allowed me to explore some trails at First Landing Park that I had never been on. I had no idea there was so much single track in the park.

Next up was one of the few races in Pocahontas County and it turned out to be a surprise trail race. It was the Linwood Library Book-It 5K/10K which as a family we were really excited to support since we take Clara to their awesome kids group activities every week. I knew the race would be mostly off road but didn't know the exact loop. But it turned out to be entirely off-road and more than half on rugged trails. The race was perfect training as it was hilly and one of the climbs in particular was short but straight up to a water tower. Race wise there wasn't anyone there for me to race but I put forth a really good trail tempo effort to grab the trail running shoes that went to the overall winner of the race. Marian grabbed the win and sunglasses that came to the 5K winner and the highlight was Clara got to run in her first kids race where she grabbed the cone on the course, put it on her head and took off. The rest of the field "kids" followed her lead making for a lot of good laughs.

The final race recap of the summer wasn't a trail although I had planned for it to be. My plan was to run the New River Gorge Trail Half Marathon as a hard test trail racing effort. My goal was to try and really push my limits to not only get more experience on the trails racing but to also see how fast I could possibly go off the summer training. The passing of my step-grandfather who had been battling cancer ruled out any thoughts I had of wanting to race as all my emotions were wrapped around the passing of a great Christian man. He lived a GREAT life, reaching the age of 90 and living his life for the Lord. It was one of those passing where your sad you won't see the person in this world but know you will see them again in a much happier place!

Since I missed racing the trail half I was anxious to jump in a race even if it wasn't trail related or anything I had trained for this summer.....so the perfect situation unfolded in that CDR 15-Miler was taking place the following weekend. Obviously CDR is very close to my heart and probably my favorite road race ever. Going into this year I have had some great success at the race. I have won the event in 2010, finished 4th overall in 2008, and finished 5th overall twice (2011 and 2012). My top time on the course of 1:22 happened in a race I consider one of my top 3 races of all-time.

This year played out very well for my overall place as I got 2nd overall to bring home $450 dollars but weather wise it was hands down the most miserable CDR in the history of the event. The pre-race temperature was already hovering around 72 degrees with 100% humidity and to make things worse the sun was out strong already.

Although the race size had another nice sized jump with over 1,500 total runners for the events, I could quickly tell the race quality was on the lower end. Other than Jeff Weiss (who was the runaway winner) I didn't see anyone that I thought could push me. Within 1-Mile into the race I probably had 30 seconds on the field behind me and was 20-30 seconds behind Jeff. It made sticking to my race plan of a medium effort easy, as I just logged mile after mile around 6-Minute pace (a little slower in the hills).

Although the effort was easy (medium to be exact) it was still fairly miserable running at times with the heat. I dumped cup after cup of water/ice over my head during the race. I can't ever remember throwing so much water on my body to try and stay cool but I do think it helped. Quickly after finishing I was already "cooled" off and feeling really good making me happy with myself for running the smart effort for what was needed for the day. Obviously to finish 2nd overall was just a huge blessing whether I had ran all-out or not!

Next up this fall is hopefully a lot of trail races within WV and VA areas. I think just logging as many trail races as possible is the smart thing to do before entering into some of the "big" ones and fully going after 50K after 50K. The plan is to race mostly 10K-25K trail distance that will allow quicker recovery and more racing. That is the plan at least and I'm excited to attack some trails!

CDR Strava Data
Results