Sandman Extreme Half Marathon/ Canary in the Cave Trail 25K++

Sandman Extreme Half Marathon

1st Place

1:23:35

Elevation Gain: 1500+ Feet

 

Strava Data: https://www.strava.com/activities/242306418

 

From Race Website: 6th annual Sandman Extreme for Excellence Half Marathon starts in downtown Wytheville, Va., snow or shine, at the old rec center. The run descends in the first mile to a crossing of Reed Creek at 2,100 feet elevation, before beginning a 4.5 mile climb to the top of Sand Mt. at 3,100'. The climb to the top is on hard surface road, with about 4 miles on packed gravel. A shorter 9 mile alternate run is available without the full climb. Winners in age categories will receive customized hour glasses. The event is a fundraiser for the Wythe County Public School Foundation for Excellence--we're all about excellence.

I stumbled onto the above race information just weeks before this race. It sounded like a lot of fun as I have really converted to seeking out the joy of running up mountains and it would also be a perfect way to get in my weekly medium-effort run. I've been back to building up my base mileage in a different format this time around. I'm basically just going really easy but going longer on my average runs. Every morning before school I'm out the door between 5:30-45am with my head lamp and reflective clothing hitting the back country roads of Green Bank for 80-90minutes a pop. Nothing has been hard or the least bit fast, it has just been basic one foot in front of the other running. To keep the legs at least somewhat honest, I have tried to include one medium-effort run on the weekends and this race fit the bill perfectly for that goal.

Overall it was the toughest road race I have ran but easy compared to most trail races since the footing was mostly great. The only dicey section was the last half mile before the summit of Sand Mountain when things were pretty much iced over.

My effort probably went slightly above medium-effort while going downhill but going up I was pretty much slower than I could have ran the entire time.

The only negative was I made a wrong turn in the finish stretch and ran a extra half mile+, it cost me the course record as I was looking at close to sub 1:20 finishing time but the extra running added 3+ minutes and cost me the 1:22:30 course record. That combined with the fun low key running on a beautiful course is probably more than enough reason to plan to go back next year!

I will say in comparison to the mountains I ran all summer and early fall, this climb wasn't too much to handle. Before moving to Pocahontas County though it would have been considered the biggest climb of my life.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Canary in the Cave 25K++

5th Place

2:08:28

 

Elevation Gain: 2001 feet

 

Strava Data: https://www.strava.com/activities/219563973

 

Race: This will be short and not so sweet! I struggled big time in this race, it was my first real bust in trail racing. I came in nursing some bad ankles that I had hurt a month earlier during my course record win at Run for the Hills Trail Half Marathon and the first 8+ miles of this course put them over the top. From there in it was all about just finishing. I followed this race with much needed recovery as it took the better part of a month+ to finally get my ankles back to feeling ok. Looking back this race really hit a lot of my weaknesses in trail racing as I found out I'm not very good on courses with lots of downhill single track and no major climbs to break it up.