Bushwhacked: The Sequel

Note: Some data is missing from the last paragraph or two of this post. Numbers will be made available when the results are posted on coolrunning. I'm too lazy to wait, and I'm sure you didn't actually care in the first place.

One year ago I had just run the Cape Cod Marathon, and thus my unhealthy relationship with coolrunning.com bloomed. Back then I was in this phase where I loved running, I loved life, and I was perfectly happy to suck at running and bring up the rear in every race I ever ran. I guess a year can change a lot of things. The first weekend in November last year, with the new lease on life that Cape Cod had given me, I showed up at the Busa Bushwhack, a "9.3"-mile (turns out it's only about 8.7 miles) trail run. This is where I met Gadfly Thom and Grandpa. Like I said, it was the beginning of an era.

I've never done the same race more than once until this morning. This year I showed up to the Busa Bushwhack in shape, having PRed in a marathon again within the last month (this time nearly 45 minutes faster than last year), and with a much more pessimistic view of my own running. Rather than being content to bring up the rear, I wish that I could maintain the same relative standard of running that I can with my cycling and swimming. This year Thom wasn't there, but I did have a friend (a change from last year when I didn't have ANY friends at all having just moved back to the US). Michelle had come along for her first trail race, and only third trail run ever. On her first run in the woods, I had had to stop and wait for her a million times as she picked her way cautiously over roots and rocks. The second time we did an even more challenging rout and she fell... twice! (I only fell once that day.) Maybe it's because of my low center of gravity compared to hers, but I tend to have pretty good balance off road, and I was pretty excited because this would probably be my only chance to post a faster time than Michelle at anything that involved running.

Grandpa was there again this year, and I was glad to see that he was wearing his Pineland Farms 50K t-shirt, which meant they actually had let him finish last May (despite not making the cut-off). I pointed him out to Michelle. "Michelle, look! There's Grandpa! The one sitting over there on the floor!"

"Does he actually know that he's your nemesis?" she asked, incredulously. While I was shooting knives with my eyes, Grandpa seemed oblivious to my existence.

"It may surprise you to hear this," I said in an ironic tone, "but most of the drama that happens in my life only occurs in my own head."

"Oh really?" she said, just as ironically. "I had no idea."

There are several things that I like about this race. First of all, it's FREE. You get a packet, a t-shirt, numbers, and everything, but you're not obligated to pay a penny. Secondly, the t-shirts are recycled from other races. This year, the mediums were from some 5K back in May and the larges were from a local Jewish community center. Third, you can get your t-shirt signed by Rick Busa (for whom the race is named) for free. Who is Rick Busa? Just a local guy in the running club that does Western States every year. Forth: for every $5 you donate to the local running club, you get three raffle tickets, and at the end of the race they keep calling off raffle ticket numbers until everyone's won something. The whole thing just seems so tongue-in-cheek to me, giving the finger to all the races that take themselves so seriously. I love it!

Rather than holding the pre-race meeting in the school gym where everyone was hanging out before the race, they had us stand outside in the 30-something-degree weather while they explained how the course was marked: excessively. Pink ribbons along the whole course, before a turn there would be 2 pink ribbons AND a dinner plate with an arrow on it AND if you went the wrong way, there were yellow ribbons all over the wrong trail. "So if you get lost," said the race director, "you're stupid." They would have two sweep runners AND a sweep EMT running the course behind us in case anything went wrong. "And I don't want anyone enjoying the scenery!" Rick Busa announced. "Keep your eye on the trail!" On the subject of iPods the race director said, "And if you feel like you need to run with an iPod while you're trail running, you're a total idiot!" Have I mentioned I love this race? I gave a strict look at Michelle who often races with her iPod.

"I left it at home!" she beamed.

I must not have charged my Garmin right after yesterday's ride, because it wouldn't even turn on. Oh well. As we ran the first block or two on the road before hitting the trailhead I was pretty out of breath. "How fast are we running, Michelle?" I gasped.

"7:10," she said.

"Good thing we warmed up, huh?" I said. We hadn't warmed up at all. But I knew it would be important to be as near to the front as possible once we hit the single-track trail. If not you get stuck behind the pokey people and it takes forever before you can run a pace that you want. Once we hit the single track I started passing people comfortably. The trail was covered with rocks and roots, which in turn were covered in leaves, hiding some of the perils that lay beneath, but I was able to pick a path easily without modifying my pace much. I knew I was cooking, but I was feeling great so I kept right on going fast. In no time flat we'd hit the turn-off for the 5-mile race and I'd noticed I was breathing kind of hard. Then we hit the first serious hill. That's when I knew I was in trouble. As the trail started climbing I realized that if I didn't slow down considerably I was going to "lose 3 minutes", aka "become reacquainted with breakfast", aka puke my guts out. So I slowed to a walk on the steepest part of the hill and the people that I had been following up until then pulled irrevocably ahead.

My legs were burning when I reached the top, but my stomach had settled down a bit, and I started feeling good again as I picked my way back down the hill. Often on trail I slow down a lot on the downhills because I'm trying to find good footing, but on this trail I was able to pick a line easily and was making pretty good time... Until I mis-judged a root that was hidden under some dried leaves and slipped. I hugged a tree with my right arm to catch my fall and had just enough time to wonder if I was going to tear my shirt as I swung around it. I wound up swinging around 180º and facing back up the hill before my feet found the ground again, still upright. I saw there was another runner a ways up the hill behind me. I righted myself and kept running, but he passed me anyway. "I hope you didn't see that," I said.

"See what?" he said in that way that meant that he'd seen the whole thing.

A cool person would have said, "Oh, nothing..." here. Instead, I said, "Me almost eating it and wrapping myself around a tree."

I was alone for awhile, which inspired me to pick up my pace again, but pretty soon I was feeling breakfast again. Over the next several miles I tried to keep my speed under control in order to keep my stomach under control, but I did have to walk twice more. This course was way hillier than I remembered. One of those times, as I warned the people around me that I might blow chunks at any second a woman in a pink top ran by me. She was way too old to be in my age group, but I didn't care. No woman in pink passes me THIS far into a race, dammit! For the next several miles I stalked her like an animal stalks its prey, and finally, just before we pulled out of the woods, she slowed down on a slight uphill and I saw my chance. I pressed down on the gas pedal and passed her at the crest of the hill. We congratulated each other as we passed, but as I tried to settle into a pace in front of her and was hit by the strongest wave of nausea of the morning. I slowed down a bit, but I guess the psychological damage had been done, because she didn't make a move to pass me. Ha! I sure showed her!

As we hit the road to run the last quarter mile to the finish line a man passed me. "You look like pure power!" he said.

"I feel like pure vomit," I groaned back.

For miles I'd been hearing footsteps and heavy breathing behind me, and had yelled over my shoulder for the guy to pass several times, but he was still there. I thought that now that we were on the road he was sure to make his move. When I turned around, though, he was still there, several paces behind me. I couldn't believe that it was a fit-looking guy well over 6 feet tall who had been drafting off of little old me for at least 3 miles. "Hey," I yelled. "If I puke will you tell me what your time was at the finish?"

"We've been running 9:21 pace," he told me. It wasn't really what I'd asked, but I guess it was nice to know.

Somehow I didn't puke. On the uphill in to the finish (where Grandpa out-sprinted me last year), I eased off just enough to keep my breakfast down, and miraculously the tall man didn't pass me. I finished in 1:19:46, roughly 9:10 pace, but not nearly as impressive as the 8:35 pace that they had me marked as on the results. "Man, thanks for letting me follow you through that last half," the tall man said. "Sometimes I find it so hard to pick my way through all those rocks, but if I can watch someone who's a few paces in front of me, then I'm okay. You were great. I hope I wasn't bothering you," he said.

"No, you kept me running scared," I said. It was true, but not for the reason he might have thought. When I had do-si-doed with the tree back at mile 3, I was pretty sure a drop or two of pee had escaped, and I was wearing the grey running tights where you can see moisture patches easily. Even if I hadn't actually peed myself, I always get a sweat patch in my crotch that LOOKED like a pee stain. The last thing I wanted was someone running behind me for 4 miles, looking at my pee stain. It turns out I didn't even have one, sweat OR pee, so I had no reason to worry.

Michelle only crossed a couple of minutes behind me, but I already had a Straight Man Over 40 talking my ear off. I hadn't even said anything to him, hadn't even looked his way, he'd just come up and started talking to me. I had to yell over his chatter to cheer Michelle on as she crossed the finish line. "I fell!" were Michelle's first words after she finished. The newest member of the Straight Men Over 40 Claire Fan Club then joined our post-race conversation and followed us back into the cafeteria for the raffle and took a seat at our table. After some time Michelle and I finally escaped to go to the bathroom and I whispered, "Michelle, I want him to go away! See what I mean, though? I don't have to DO anything, they just find me!" I'd never had a witness to my charming of the Straight Men Over 40 before. Some people can charm bees, others snakes, I charm older men.

"Well, it looks like he's not going anywhere, so you might as well get used to him," she said.

In the end I got third out of eight in my age group, compared to third out of three last year. Still, I was well outside the first place needed to win a log with a little plate on it saying the race name, date, and your age group. I finished almost 16 minutes ahead of my time from last year (or nearly 2 minutes per mile!) and in the top 58% (65/112) of the overall field, compared to only 87% (77/89) last year. For a second I wanted to be disappointed, because if I hadn't felt like I was going to puke, I wouldn't have slowed down so much. But then I realized that if I hadn't felt like I was going to puke, I probably wouldn't have been running so fast in the first place. Maybe on a perfect day I could have run about 2 minutes faster, but that wouldn't have been nearly enough for me to close the gap between me and the next chick in my age group anyway. I ran a good race. I ran hard, and for some of the time that I was running hard, I felt good doing it. But I also ran just hard enough that I didn't feel TOO good. I'd suffered. I'd felt strong through the whole thing and didn't start tripping over rocks and roots at the end, which meant that my form had held up for the full 8.whatever miles.

And best of all, this year I beat Grandpa by 24 and a half minutes. Michelle thinks I need a new nemesis. I THINK that all the women I'd seen in pink at the starting line were accounted for, and finished behind me, so that was good enough for me.