Craziest race I've ever run this morning. Mike, Brian and I went up early to the North Kitsap OPG logging trails, where the Poulsbo Running people put on their trail race series. This is the first one of the year, it's a 25k fundraiser for a food bank (so it's free). You just park your car on the side of the road, sign in on a sheet, take off with everybody else (the start is a guy saying 'Um, alright, let's go') and record your own time when you finish. If you want, do another lap for 50k. So pretty relaxed. The great thing about those trails (in a way) is that they just wind all around, from gravel roads to dirt paths to technical single-track. And every Roots Rock course is different, so you don't really know the course. They mark turns with flour and orange ties on the trees. So we take off in a pretty decent rain at 7:30, when it's still kind of dark. Kind of a nasty way to start Sunday morning. By mile two the rain is real light snow, which was kind of peaceful and not as bad for the footing. By 40 minutes in the snow was heavy, huge flakes in our faces, and it didn't let up at all. We were just sloshing through the course, hoping not to miss the turns. Mike and I were a few back of the leaders and just watching their footprints to see where to go. It was an adventure, especially the uphill portions (and there were a lot in the first 2/3 of the course, pretty much solid up and down). At the 1:40 mark I was feeling good, and we could see two guys ahead on long stretches. I had a gu and left Mike to go after those guys, not quite knowing how many miles we had left. I caught the first guy pretty quickly, then the other guy five minutes later. After that I could only see one set of footprints, but the snow was a good 3 inches deep everywhere, and the rutted parts of trail were swamps. But the course was on a little plateau by then, and had flattened out. Even though I was cold my legs felt outstanding, and I still had plenty of energy. I started to pour it on a bit more, sensing the finish. I ended up taking one wrong turn (noticed when there were no more footprints), which luckily met up with the correct route. The race director took the same mistake (huh?) and told me we ran an extra 100m or so. The guy behind gained a bit of ground, so that inspired me to hammer in the last 800m or so. Came in at a pretty good clip, felt great but soaked and cold. I figured I was second, but two guys had signed the book. One guy really was flying, 1:48. The other was four minutes ahead of me. Grabbed a cup of coffee, cookie and lukewarm bowl of soup, then ran to the truck to change into dry clothes. I couldn't feel my right middle finger for 45 minutes after the race, I think that might be a problem. It was the weirdest race finish, no one waited around at all. People hit the finish, wrote their time, caught their breath for 15 seconds and split. It was dumping snow by then, and everyone was getting out of there. Cool down was sitting in the truck waiting for the other guys, and walking into Starbucks. Naturally, the sun is out now and the snow's melted away. Great timing for those two races this weekend, I hope the weather gods notice my dedication. I'm taking tomorrow off and sleeping in. 2:04:59 total.
pearl izumi trail
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