Muddy (1/4) Marathon at Mountain Creek

With 1 week to go before the Spartan Beast, I had the opportunity to run 1 lap of the Muddy Marathon at Mountain Creek. Here are the notes:

Distance: 5.75 miles
Time: 2:20
Elevation: 1,998 feet
Pace: 25 minutes per mile

Trail Running

This was not a running race. Without getting negative on the event, I found that off trail running is a type of event that is not for me. I was never able to find any sort of running rhythm since every step was looking where to put my foot and not slip on a rock or trip over a branch, look immediately around me so that I did not get stabbed by a branch, and look 10 feet ahead so that I could find and follow the trail markers. This is a skill that trail runners have developed and I have not. I hiked a lot more than I ran and I did not sign up to be a hiker.   

What made this event not fun for me was my mindset. I came in knowing that I ran 6.5 miles on flat ground in an hour last week and a couple of weeks before that I ran trail hills for 2 hours and covered 9 miles. I was confident in my ability to do this in 2 hours. I became frustrated when I could not run due to the terrain. I was there to do this in 2 hours and I realized early that was not going to happen and it took all of the fun out it.

The Course

Basically, straight up the mountain, around the lake, straight down and circle back. Very limited use of the ski trails. All of the steepest inclines and declines were used. Very challenging.

Aside from the back woods, off trail stuff there were some steep inclines as part of this race. Killington is a bigger mountain but there the inclines there were not nearly as steep as what I did for this event. Not only did they utilize the Pipeline Double Black ski trail but they also included a section that was, no exaggeration, rock climbing.

There is snow covering a good percentage of the mountain so things were a bit slippery and I am glad that this was my first run in real trail running shoes with large cleats. I needed every bit of it.

Random Notes:

1 - DO NOT deadlift heavy the day before running up and down a mountain. My mistake on this one. I underestimated how tough this was going to be. Ideally, should have rested on Friday.

2 - The wind on sections of this course dropped the temperatures by 20 degrees. Need to keep that in mind for the Beast. I plan to dress warmer because of this. There is more of a risk not dressing warm enough than over dressing. Overheating will be the least of my concerns.  

3 - Could have done a better job with pacing. Since I thought that this was going to be a 2 hour race (any finish time over 2 hours is technically a DNF) I was out of the gate strong leading to a terrible back half of the course.

4 - Use nutrition & water. I didn't stop for water at the half way point. I kept on going. 2nd half of the race I hit a wall and could have used a gel/water/energy. I will be smarter about this next week. 

All in all, as poor as my performance was, I am glad that I did this. Great test run before the Beast and I learned, or was reminded of may things. Also got to break in my Reebok All Terrain Supers, I am happy with them.