The final race of the XC season took place Sunday. It was a gorgeous 8K at a local community college. I knew ahead of time that this would be a tough one. Since I injured my ankle earlier this season, I haven’t done a single run longer than 4.5 miles. An 8K is just under 5 miles, so I was under-prepared by definition.To my surprise and despair, it was not the distance that wrecked me so much as the humongous hill in the 4th mile of the course. I’ve been selectively avoiding hills all season, since that’s the one activity that still messes with my achilles. Luckily none of the previous XC races held significant hills, and my lack of hill training didn’t affect me too much. Sunday my luck ran out.
Since this was the championship race, I did not have the luxury of running with my most evenly-matched demographics, the masters and veteran men, who were split into a separate race. For this reason, the pack thinned quite early. Still, I felt strong in the 3rd mile, and even passed three people. Once we reached the huge hill in the 4th mile, I attacked it and managed to pass two more. But once I hit the first plateau I was destroyed. I wrote recently about angels and demons that speak to us while we race. There was none of that when I got to the top of this hill. Both the angels and demons were all dead, and all my mind could do was process the pain I felt. If you’ve ever struggled up a hill in an XC race you probably know what I mean – hills hurt in a different way from the rest of the race, and it’s scary if you’re not used to it. I spent the next half-mile chugging gradually uphill at a barely perceptible pace Finally at the 4-mile marker I seemed to remember “Oh – I’m in a race!” and pick it up until I reached the finish. I put on a strong kick and finished happily.
Since I had so much time off this season I’m going to turn instantly to training for indoors. I’m trying to commit to running consistently this winter, and that starts with a consistent basis built through the rest of 2007.