The Loop 30K

On Sunday I ran the Rogue Loop 30K at Emma Long Park. It's a great trail generally only for motorbikes, but once a year it is opened up to runners for this race. It turned out to be a great day. I've mentioned before that I'm searching for The Perfect Race, and this was almost it... Almost.

I started in the back, which was a huge mistake. I was busy talking to some friends when the gun went off, and I was stuck in the back. The course is almost entirely single track, so the first mile ended up being a single file line where I was doing more walking than running. Some people like to go out slow, but I don't, so this was really annoying. I should know better than to get stuck in the back, but I slowly made my way through and after about 15 minutes I was free to run my own pace.

The first two loops went by very quickly and I felt really good. I finished the first loop at about 60 minutes, mostly due to the slow first mile, but the second loop took about 53 minutes so that was a lot better. I tried running with a group of 3 runners for awhile, but they were faster than me on the uphills and gawd-awful slow on the down hills, so I eventually left them. It was too hard to adjust my running style for them. g

The third loop went great for 5 miles. Right around mile 5 there is a downhill and I was flying down it like I usually do. Then, my left foot stuck to a rock. There was no time to catch myself, my body just went horizontal and I flew. When I hit the ground, everything stopped. I hit it completely flat. I actually cut up both knees, thighs, elbows, hands and even my stomach. I have no idea how I managed to land completely flat and cut myself in all of those locations but I did. I layed there for a minute, then got up to one knee. Just then a runner came up right behind me and ran by. He didn't say a freaking word to me. Not a "are you ok?" or "need some help?" or anything. I would have told him I was fine anyways, but I couldn't believe he just ran by. So I decided I was going to catch the bastard and beat him to the finish line... Just as soon as I caught my breath and walked off the pain a little. After about 2 minutes, I was off.

I spent the next 10 minutes trying to catch him, but just when I finally saw him in the distance, I heard the crowd at the finish line. It was too late, and I finished 20 seconds behind him. But I should thank him, had he not pissed me off, I probably would have just shuffled to the finish line after the fall, and not pushed it to the end. I'm still gonna burn him on the next race though.