Trail Run race 1:14:02 [3] 9.2 mi (8:03 / mi) +297m 7:19 / mi
I drove up to the OH on Friday night, thinking of participating in the "Adams Vertical" day on Saturday. (Long story very short: in '58 Chris Goetze ran up and down Adams 4 times in 12ish hours, for 18k of vert and then set the FKT on the Mahoosuc Traverse that stuck until last year; also set the Hut Traverse FKT, died of a brain tumor at 38, this was a bit of an homage.) But I got a late start up and didn't get in until 11 and we decided not to go for the start because sleep is good.
So we (me and Jess) are driving through Pinkham at 9:30 and see signs for a trail race calling to us like Mecca. We stop. Black Fly in my Eye race at Great Glen. We discuss for a few minutes, look up last year's results and say "heck, let's do it." So with 25 minutes notice, we jump in to a trail race. It helped that it was cool, cloudy, the mountains were still in the clouds and we could still go hiking after. That might be a record, even for me. All I knew is there was a river crossing late in the race and I didn't want wet shoes later for hiking, so I wore my New Balance trail-runners-but-not-really-trail-runners which were probably fine for the mostly ski trail trails.
Tristan (AMCer) was there and he's fast. I probably wasn't going to beat him. Not sure about the rest of the (small) field. I went out with the lead pack and pretty quickly Tristan was head of us and a couple of minutes later, runner #2 went ahead, but after running a 6:23 mile going out (downhill, but still) I decided I didn't have to win the race. Ran the rest of the first loop (mostly ski trail) before coming through the start, 1 & 2 out of sight ahead of me and 4 maybe half a minute back. I dropped my t-shirt and grabbed a beverage and went skittering under the road for the second lap.
The second lap climbs up a more trail-y trail and then comes down Aqueduct Road. This is good, because I know that road really well (start of the hut traverse, secret croo trail in and out of Carter). Knowing I had this fellow behind me, I turned up the pace a bit for the uphill and by the top of the hill he was out of sight. I went down the road fast but not out of control (unfortunately, we were a few minutes early to be passing hut croo coming down with pack boards), took a right up the trail back to the lap, and seemed to have quite a bit of time on fourth place.
I looped the start as instructed, grabbed a cup of water, and ran down the hill in to the third section of the race; 4th place was right ahead of me but had a ¼ loop to go. All of a sudden there was a guy right behind me. I glanced at him. Not a relay bib, and not the guy in red. Wow, he must have really been on a tear. I let him lead through a short singletrack section and then decided that a) he was probably a good downhill runner and b) he was probably tired for chasing me down.
So, we got on to a gradual uphill, and I matched him stride for stride. Slowly I began to pull away, and within a few minutes he was out of sight. Still feeling like I was being run down, I took the last lap relatively quickly, only slowing down when I got to the field and saw a long gap behind me, so I took my time through the river (which was nice and cool) and the steep bank beyond it to the finish.
Blue shirt guy came in about half a minute later, with Jess right on his tail. They were then both instructed to run the start loop—they'd both skipped it. As it turned out, the volunteer had guided them the wrong way, so the reason they wound up right behind me was that they had both skipped a minute or two of running. This made more sense. He actually lost a place during that time, but Jess still won.
I thought I was third, so I was going to get a prize and a picture on a podium in front of the Northern Presidentials. Turns out, they called someone else third. The guy in the blue shirt was actually in second place his first lap split was nearly a minute ahead of mine (Tristan was about 4 minutes faster on each leg!), and at some point must have gotten lost or pulled off in the second lap; I never passed him but he certainly wound up behind me, skipped loop or not. I won a fly swatter, three t-shirts and a couple of tupperwares. Really.
Jess won a pair of free shoes, and apologized to the second place woman (who she knew, sort of) for showing up at the last second. Tristan said he almost didn't come, so I almost could have won! And the men's podium was swept by former AMC staff, so we should have had a flag to unfurl or something. Anyway, great race, fun course, good atmosphere. I've sort of planned and missed this race for a while, it was fun to do!