Dogwood Canyon 25k Race Report

From Dogwood Canyon Trail Run

I was so happy to be done!

From Dogwood Canyon Trail Run

This past Sunday October 25, 2009 I ran the Bass Pro Shops Dogwood Canyon 25k. A little background is needed to completely tell this story. Thursday night, I started to feel a scratchy throat coming on. Friday morning I woke up with a chest cold and called in sick to work. I had taken the week off from running to rest a left ankle that was giving me some irritation. I felt better on Saturday and heard that for completing the trail run we would receive a North Face Fleece Pullover. I took it easy on Saturday and woke up early Sunday morning and took Mucinex DM and headed to meet Dwight, so we could drive to Lampe, MO. The Dogwood Canyon Nature Park is a beautiful place and has some gorgeous scenery. The hills were the longest and toughest I've ever run in my life. I ran the first 2-3 miles on pace with Dwight, we walked the first major hill we came to. Everyone had to walk portions of this course. Before we reached 4 miles we had crossed the water 15 times. I had worn both compression garments for my lower legs and they actually absorbed a fair amount of water during the crossings. This made my legs quite heavy. I did wear wool socks and they managed to keep my feet warm even when they were wet. At about 4 miles, I decided that I couldn't keep pace with Dwight for much longer so I let him go. I passed a co-worker of mine, Jill Tillman about 5 miles. I knew that I wasn't running much faster than her and eventually she would catch back up to me. Throughout the run, I ran with several other runners for periods of time as we conversed about various subjects. Jill caught me about somewhere between 7 and 8 miles and we ran for a mile together. I was trying to converse and I could tell that she wasn't used to talking and running. She was really pushing it and I was content to run slow enough to talk. I let her go ahead and figured that I would see her after the race. On any other day, I would have stayed with her to the finish. But, I just couldn't maintain that pace she was running. About the 8.5 mile mark, I was starting to feel sick to my stomach and not wanting to take any calories in. I had packed some fun size snicker bars and swedish fish. I was carrying my hand held water bottle and was sipping on that every so often.Around the 9 mile mark or so, it started pouring down rain. It really didn't bother me except for the size of the drops. The cold rain drops actually cooled me down a little. I trudged through and mind was kind of going numb. I walked the uphills and the downhills were so steep, that my quads were completely "trashed" by the end of the day. The surface on several downhills was very treacherous and I found myself hoping that I wouldn't fall down one of these hills. Once I reached 9.3 miles, I thought "okay, now you just have a 10k left". That was a long 10k. When I got to 11 miles, one of the other runners had hurt her knee going down the hill in front of me. Myself and another runner assisted her down the hill where there was an aid station before we got on a 1.5 mile stretch of asphalt through the nature park. This is where I really was able to make up some time. It started to rain again and pretty much stayed raining off and on for the next hour. I was hoping that these last 4.5 miles were on the asphalt, but I was pretty sure that it would go back into the wooded trails. I started taking a walk break after 4 minutes of running from that point forward. I just kept thinking to myself that I wanted to finish in under 3 hours. People were starting to pass me quite regularly, so I could tell that I was slowing down. By the time I crossed the finish line at 2:48:33, I was so relieved to be finished. Then the pain in my back started. Dwight was feeling pretty cold since he had been waiting for me for 26 minutes. He finished 14th overall with a 9:05 pace. That was amazing! I finished 51 out of 149 runners and 7th out of 14 in my age group of 35-39 year old men. My legs are so sore now 2 days later I can barely walk. I definitely didn't help my cold at all and have started on an antibiotic for bronchitis. Well it made for a great story.