First up was the Pfeiffer Nature Center 10 mile run. The biggest hills I have seen. Maybe there were a few people up front running, but around me, NO ONE ran up those hills. And a lot of them stopped part way. I at least kept moving. One of them even had a rope to help you up. I wish there were more to transfer some of the energy to my arms instead of my legs!
Went pretty well, except apparently I left my Tomtom watch on the night before so it died about 3 miles in. But it looks like I noticed it pretty quick and switched to my phone to track the rest.
The start was rather abrupt as well. It sounded like they were kind of announcing something like 20 minutes ahead of time, but you couldn't really hear much from the cars and it was like 50 degrees and damp so it didn't sound like a lot of fun to be standing around outside for a while, but I thankfully took a last drink before heading over to where people were standing and sure enough she made a few statements about keeping on track and helping your other runners and then as the next sentence "and with that we're off!"
I also had figured I needed to keep a pace around 11.5 minute miles to be done in time to run up to Holiday Valley for the second one. Which would be a slower pace than any other race I had run. Well, I think in the end I was somewhere just under 13 minutes per mile.
Oh, and there was one really fun section of downhill just the right amount of steep where you could really get your speed up and it had a number of banked turns. Who knew you could run banked turns like that! Awesome!
Anyway, I knew I was NOT ahead of schedule by any means as I ran through the finish. Took a minute or two to find a bottle of water and a piece of sub and then headed off to the car. Had most everything ready to just switch bibs, put down some plastic bags on the seat cause I was soaked in sweat and off we went.
Of course Salamanca was closed on the highway so it was backing up traffic. And as much as Waze is supposed to find you the quickest way, it kept saying it was going to be 11:44(Race director told me I needed to be there by 11:30) and to keep going towards the traffic, I used the Prius' shortest route option and took an alternate route which turned out to be a great idea and even Waze agreed, as soon as I turned off, it updated to 11:38 arrival time. Not sure why it could have updated the route itself if that would have been faster! But that run up to Holiday Valley in the Prius was pretty much my second race in itself!
So, I think I ended up pulling into the Holiday Valley Parking lot at like 11:39. VERY glad I had gone the night before so I already had my bib and timing chip and at least had some idea where to go. Got out of the car and legs/feet seemed pretty good to go(semi-surprisingly), though the wind hit me as I was still soaking wet and it was maybe 55 degrees. Of course I had to ask where exactly to go start(these obstacle races need better signs telling me where to go!), but I got told to head off over the hill following some other people and there was still a big line at the chair lifts, so I figured I wasn't late yet. Thankfully that gave me a chance to make a bathroom break.
So I got in line and managed to strike up a conversation with a couple guys. Randy and Marty from Bradford. Quite a while actually since we were in line for probably 15 minutes and then we were on the chair lift for like 30-45 minutes. Apparently there was something wrong with it so it was on it's slowest setting. We were literally going about 1-2mph maybe. We definitely could have outwalked it up the hill. And WOW was it nice and chilly on there with the wind blowing!
But we finally made it to the top. I wasn't sure exactly how we were starting so I started up my phone shortly before the top of the chairlift, and then found another bathroom break before heading out. And I also found out on the way up that I had my timing chip in the wrong place. I'd never used one like this and it came with no directions. The closest I had seen was Spartan's a couple weeks earlier that was wrist mounted. Apparently this one was meant for shoes. Oops. I'm guessing that's why my start time didn't get recorded. But judging by when I started runkeeper and later finding Randy and Marty's start times, it must have been right at or after 12:30.
Oh, getting off the lift wasn't TOO bad, but ooh, I could feel those feet. We were definitely getting them and the legs back into the movement as I started running. Thankfully almost all of this one was downhill, but those little uphills were rough! And even the flat was definitely more tiring than it otherwise would have been!
As I suspected, obstacles were just so so, there were some covered innertubes to run over, some logs to go over/under, a good bit of mud(oh and there was a good bit of that at the 10 mile race as well to make those hills more fun!). Umm, a big slide into mud at the end... Running through some mud under snow cannons, a couple walls... But it was fun.
And surprise, surprise, looking at the results I'm in the top 20 for males! (out of like 165). Not bad for a second 5K+ race! (Not that I think many people there were out for a top speed).
I wouldn't have tried to get in that second race, but I got it free on active.com so I figured why not try. And I'm glad I did, it was great just to have done the two races like that!
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