Dagmar 5 Peaks Trail Race
Saturday, August 16, 2003Race report from Richard...
Date: Sun Aug 17, 2003
Subject: Dagmar 10.5K Trail race
Richard and Catherine, pre-race
I didn't know what to expect and even if I had some expectations, it turned out to be something else
Despite some thunder storms on our way to Dagmar, it turned out to be a beautiful day and not a muddy experience as one might have expected since the course was dry. My car also carried Bryan, who is a guy who works for a company that does some work for 'my' project. He is one of those fast ones and a member of the Longboat runners. At Dagmar we met up with another member of the longboat runners, David, who was the guy who did that 24 hours treadmill running in January where we talked about on the mailing list. He is also on the Canadian 100K team that is going to participate at the World Championship. Both, despite being so fast, are pretty down-to-earth. They even asked if I wanted to join them for a warm-up run but I politely declined. I don't think I would have made it to the start line ;-)
I also met up with 'our' Michael Holmes, unfortunately the only other penguin who was there. At the RunTO race it was easy to miss other people but here the number of runners was a little bit less. There were 60 runners in the my 'Men Open' category.
Anyway, with some delay we started our challenge for the day: finish 10.5 kilometres through the woods. I had never run a trail race and had no idea what to expect. I kinda expect some wide trails but most of the time it was single lane. The first 2K there was one long line of runners. Besides that, the trail was all but straight. Turning, turning, turning and turning as the race map shows [left]. Of course not on the map are the elevation changes. It took place on a area that is used for skiing. An extra challenge, as if we needed that, were the roots of all the trees and the rocks. I almost fell on numerous occassions.
The first 20 minutes I ran everything but it was not possible to continue to do that. The steep uphill sections became the traffic lights during a training run: "Oh god, I can stop running".
Around the halfway point there was a water station and at the point I had already been running 40 minutes and I was already soaked with sweet. Mike told me that I should add about 10-20% to my normal 10K time but it was pretty clear that this calculation was not going to work today.
The problem with this kind of running is that you don't know how far you still have to go (no km markers) and also not how many up and downs there are ahead of me and if you get some straight lines or not. I was afraid to kill myself early in the race but I can't really say that I was taking it easy.
The second half I was able to increase my pace a little bit and I started to pass people. With only 2-3 minutes left in the race there was another steep and relatively long hill. Bryan and Dave were cheering me on at the bottom. I guess I had to run this one up and passed the last people before the finish line. (it's nice to be cheered on by a world record holder :)
In the end the second half took me 34 minutes but that doesn't say much since it's doubtful if the water station was really at the halfway point. My finish time was around the 1:14:15 (official result have not been posted). This time doesn't really mean anything because you can't compare it with any other road race or even another trail race. This is just my Dagmar time.
Bryan finished 2nd in the Men Open and David won the Men Masters (40+) category and both did it in the low 40 minutes. They are just from a different planet than me. I was fun to see how 'those' people prepare: warm-up clothes with warm-up shoes, spikes, a cool-down run with again different shoes and clothes of course.
I felt pretty pleased with this race. When I was running, I was thinking that it was just great that I was doing this and in a way I was even impressed and even proud for completing it.
All in all, it was a lot of fun. It was tough but very rewarding.
Richard
Bryan (2nd overall) and Richard after the race
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