New Paltz Turkey Trot

Brrrr. That's really all you need to know. Just, brrrr.

Thanksgiving was COLD this year; here's how I figured that out before the New Paltz Turkey Trot had begun:

• After spending three minutes outside picking up my race number, I was unable to send a text because I was shivering too violently. 
• The only exposed skin (outside of my face) during the warm-up was on my ankles, and it felt as if it had been lit on fire. A very cold fire.
• I lost all feeling in my left foot and in three toes of my right foot.

Generally speaking, the weather wasn't all that oppressive. Sure, 15 degrees is not warm, but I've raced in colder temps. Maybe it was the suddenness of the temperature drop, or the accompanying wind that made this feel so much worse than it should have. It was bad enough that 300 of the 1100 people who'd registered for this race didn't even bother showing up despite shelling out $25. But I don't believe in sunk costs, and I'm also not easily deterred from a chance to race in my hometown, so into the cold I not-so-bravely went.

I met Mike and Winter to attempt to warm up on 'Historic' Huguenot Street. (As a New Paltz native, I am contractually obligated to use the 'Historic' moniker.) It didn't work, as noted above, but I did enjoy causing Mike's anxiety to ratchet up a few notches as we returned with scant few minutes remaining before the start. I quickly changed into my racing flats, which are of the Nike Flyknit design, allowing for maximal circulation of frigid air to my toes. 

At the start, I bumped into an old teammate who was wearing shorts and no gloves or hat. My bare ankles burned this time with embarrassment. I also learned of some fast younger locals who'd been spotted warming up (by "learned," I mean Mike's parents told me that I was going to lose to them). This race also attracts some wild cards, including this 1:02 half-marathoner two years ago, so I didn't know what to expect from the competition and would have to be agile with my strategy as the race developed.

Just as we were about to start, the first few rows of runners were informed (via an old-fashioned megaphone, like the kind you might have seen in a political rally in the 1880s) that due to snow on the rail trail, we'd be doing an out-and-back on the road instead of the USATF-certified 5K loop. I recalled that the last time I'd done this race, back in 2014, we were forced into the out-and-back route, as well, which turned out to be slightly longer than a 5K. I'd hoped that the more professional race organization this year would yield a better turnaround point. Time would tell...

At the whistle, a few younger guys shot out quickly (I'm pretty sure I write that in 90% of these posts), and I wound up in 5th or 6th for the first quarter mile. Shortly after the start is the only hill in the race, a short rise of 35 feet that gently encourages you to reconsider your opening pace. By the top of the hill, I was in second, and within another 50 yards, I was in the lead, but with company. I looked to the right and saw a guy I recognized as a great local high school and collegiate runner, who'd run a 30:20 10K on the track last spring. (He and his brother and their teammates were responsible for taking nearly every individual and relay school record I was part of in high school.) I introduced myself, and, after he complimented me for being in shape, I made a disparaging comment about it only being a half-mile into the race and likely not lasting much longer. He took the hint and got a few steps on me. I happily got into his wind shadow and stayed there for a few minutes. 

I felt the pace slacken a little, and I decided to take the lead for a bit. But as I moved up, I noticed the sound of his footsteps fade just a little, as we reached the mile in 5:19 (5 seconds faster than 2014). I pressed the pace, and the footsteps receded farther into the distance. Around this time, a couple of old teammates were unexpectedly positioned on the side of the road, and this put a smile on my face and jolted me onward. I was feeling good and seemingly increasing the lead continuously. Up ahead, I saw the cone in the middle of the road's terminal circle. It appeared that this would be another 5+ kilometer race, and my watch's 1.62-mile reading at the cone confirmed it. 

Interestingly, there was not a volunteer at the cone. I didn't think much of it at the time (other than that I was surprised they trusted us so much and hoped I had turned in the right place). In retrospect, this was a huge organizational gaffe that caused a great deal of havoc a short time later, but we'll get to that.

On the way back, I saw I had maybe 15 seconds on 2nd place, and then a big gap to 3rd and 4th. I got some hand slaps from Mike and a couple of other high school teammates, which was where the fun part of the out-and-back ended. I soon ran into a wall of people of all ages, shapes, and sizes filling the road and coming directly at me without any idea I was headed their way. I'd been running the whole race on the left side of the road, but that was no longer going to work. I tried the right side to no avail. The middle was equally full. I finally opted for the flexible/spastic approach: darting left and right as needed to avoid head-on collisions. This was more frustrating than I could have ever imagined. I lost all sense of pace and rhythm and longed for the open road. It wasn't until I was within 3/4-mile of the finish that the crowd thinned, and I had free reign of the road. Oh, what a relief that was. I'd missed my watch's 2-mile beep but later saw the split was 5:17 (2 more seconds gained on 2014). 

By this point, I was tired and cold and not feeling all that peppy. The mile-three split was 5:15 (vs. 5:11 in 2014). I cruised back down the hill we'd come up earlier, around the final bend, and into the finish to the rapturous applause of the 5 or 6 people brave enough to stand in the cold to watch. My final time was 16:56, which was EXACTLY the same as my time from four years prior. I'm a little disappointed not to set my 3.2-mile PR (ha ha), but I was in pretty good shape in 2014, having just run 47:01 at Li'l Rhody and just about to run fast at Old Mountain, so I can't be too disappointed. 2nd place was roughly a minute back, and Mike, in a solid 5th, another minute behind that.

I do, however, wish the race organizers had had the foresight to either direct runners to run on one side of the street or the other, or to have had a lead vehicle that could have cleared the way. It also would have helped to announce to the entire field that the course would be an out-and-back. I can't blame any of the other runners for doing what they did; there's no way they should have expected to deal with oncoming runners. (I was surprised to learn from Mike, though, that they hadn't gotten the clue by the time he came through, so perhaps they're not totally blameless.)

In any case, I really enjoyed the race despite the human obstacles and frigid temperatures, and even got a cool hand-made pottery gravy boat that was immediately employed for our Thanksgiving dinner that night. All things considered, it was a nice way to start the holiday. 

Pfalz Point Trail Challenge

For nine years, I've been penciling the Pfalz Point Trail Challenge into my race calendar, and for nine years, I've been crossing it off. The reasons varied (injuries, travel, distance, conflicts), but they showed up consistently every September. So, when I once again blocked the last Sunday in September this year, I did so fully expecting to delete the calendar entry at some point in the months leading up to the race.  And I was nearly right! My quad started bothering me 10 days before the race, and a hilly, long trail race didn't seem like a wise idea. I held off signing up until 2 days before, when I decided I'd give it a go. The day before, I loaded the car with my things and 2/3 of my children, and headed off to my parents' house in New Paltz. 

Let's fast-forward to race day and a slightly different blog format. I'll use the photos (my own and those of the race photographers -- who posted 1500 photos for free online!) from throughout the race to take you through the event.

It was a beautiful and crisp morning, with temps in the 40s, rising into the 50s by race time. I found after pulling into the grass parking area that the week's rain hadn't managed to get very far below the surface. The turf was saturated, and so was my left shoe after stepping out of the car. I was quite early, so I took a jaunt over to the so-called "Million Dollar View," an expansive vista toward the Catskills, which, on this day, were hovering above a valley of fog. 

The view was somewhat spoiled by an awful odor, which upon inspection was revealed to originate in my right armpit. This is highly unusual for me, but it seemed fitting, and here's why: As a young runner, I would get dragged along on summer evening excursions in these very mountains with a combination of high school teammates and grizzled local veteran runners (who, I now realize, were probably my current age). They were, without exception, fragrant in a way that only runners can be. 

I had never experienced anything quite like that first whiff, and it never got any better. Yet, there I was, 20+ years later, emanating my own brand of the mountain runner's perfume. It made me smile a little...and then scrub with whatever dew I could swipe from the morning grass.

 There weren't many familiar faces in the starting area. I'd bumped into a high school teammate during my warm-up and spotted the Vassar coach, whom I know by name but hadn't formally met. Otherwise, the field was a mystery. My A goal for the day would be a sub-65 performance, while my B goal was to beat my 2009 time of 66:50(?). 

The race starts in probably the soggiest three miles anywhere in the 100+ miles of Mohonk Preserve trails. This was unfortunate, as it meant we'd be running in wet, heavy shoes for the entirety of the race. I'd already decided to wear my heavy Hokas and ankle braces, and this would just add to the burden. These three miles alternate between open grass fields and very technical single track. 

The pace was moderate, and I bounced between first and third place before settling into second as we approached the hill that had killed me nine years ago. This 400' climb over a 1/2 mile beat me up the last time I'd raced it. I'd told myself ever since then that the race doesn't start until that hill is summitted. I followed my advice and didn't make a move until hitting the carriage road at the top.

Over the next mile, after a flat section, the course gradually climbs another few hundred feet. I edged onto the shoulder of the Vassar coach, who'd been leading to that point, but he sensed my move and accelerated as well. We ran astride until a few hundred yards up the hill, when I edged ahead. The third part of our triumvirate, an unknown runner in a NYAC uniform, came right with me and eventually passed me midway up the hill.  

I stuck close behind him and passed him back when I sensed a lag in the pace. As we reached the golf course, I was in the lead but hadn't shaken him. I still felt good at this point (less than halfway through the race) but I worried that he hadn't yet shown any signs of weakness. Would he make another move? Would he break?







We wound our way through the course, and I got progressively less confident in my ability to drop him. We faced another big climb up to the 5-mile mark, and then we'd descend for nearly the entirety of the race. Downhills have never been my forte, and trying to win a race down a 5-mile hill would require a genuine miracle. As if sensing my uneasiness, he flew past me just as we started the ascent. I stayed on him all the way to the top, when, as expected, he shot out of a cannon and left me in his wake. Seriously. He was 10 seconds ahead within a minute. If the remainder of his downhill running was as good as he'd just demonstrated, I'd be lucky to finish within 5 minutes of him.

There was a water stop at the intersection near the bottom of the first downhill, and, as I could no longer see him, it gave me a chance to gauge how far ahead he was by the gap in the cheers for each of us. It seemed to me he was 15-20 seconds up at this point, but we still had four miles to go, and I was feeling fine. We turned onto a long, flat trail, where I could still see him on certain very straight stretches. I sensed I was holding steady here, but I'd need to start chipping away soon if I wanted to have a chance. Not taking anything for granted, I also peeked back a few times to make sure I was safely in second (I was). 

Turning off the flat path, we descended sharply into a meadow path with views toward Bonticou Crag. This is where my very first XC practices were held as a high school freshman. I fondly remembered my coach (also a rookie) teaching me to run downhill with wildly helicoptering arms. I thought I might try that on the next descent, as my technique couldn't get any worse at it than I had been to that point. After another sharp drop, the course climbs up a steep, long single-track that feels a million times worse than it should, since I'd gotten so accustomed to running downhill over the previous two miles. I really struggled on this hill and started to accept that first place was out of grasp.

After cresting this hill, it's all downhill to the finish, over the final two miles. About 400 meters into this final descent, I started sensing a slight pulling sensation in one hamstring and then the other. I was on the verge of major leg cramps and didn't know what to do about it. I hit the brakes and quite literally began jogging to try to let the muscles calm down a bit. I was in self-preservation mode at this point. A full-on hamstring cramp could end my race and would, at the very least, cost me a spot or two. I couldn't let that happen, so on I jogged. I eventually began to accelerate, but only gradually, as anything more sudden would have surely caused the legs to cramp again. 

I got into a comfortable rhythm that was more tempo pace than race pace, but it would have to do. I frequently looked back to make sure I was safe, and fortunately I was. I'm not sure what I would've done had I been forced to defend my position. This was a sad way to end the race, and I was becoming increasingly aware that I might not even beat my time from '09.

I saw the finish clock tick over 1:06 as I crossed. I was far behind my 1:05 goal and not far enough ahead of my '09 goal to be totally satisfied. I like to think I had another minute in me without the cramping, but the cramps were part of the race, and if I want to be successful in an event like this, I need to figure out a way to avoid them. Higher mileage would help, but I'm afraid that just isn't possible. Maybe I need to stick with shorter races.

Afterward, I enjoyed seeing just how muddy I'd gotten over those first few miles, and was impressed that most of it had stuck with me through the race. The Hokas weren't the most race-friendly shoe, but I wore them to help cope with pounding of the downhills, and from that perspective, they acquitted themselves quite nicely. And, as always, the ankle braces saved me once or twice from disaster. I have an intense love-hate relationship with those things.

The highlight of the day, of course, is the pie-covered awards table, from which I took a delicious apple pie donated by the local Bruderhof community. I also helped myself to two servings of the amazing chili supplied by The Bistro, one of my favorite local restaurants.

Through internet research (Note: NOT stalking), I later learned that the winner was a 9:03 steepler from Tufts. I suddenly felt less bad about losing to him by 1:45.

In the end, I'm glad I finally returned to this race, happy with the course PR, but now hungrier than ever to finally conquer it. I just hope it doesn't take another nine years to get back out there.

Williams XC Alumni Race

I was going to start this post with some comment on heading back to the Purple Valley of western Massachusetts to relive my collegiate running glory days. But, looking back 15+ years, there really wasn't much glory, or at least not as much as I dreamed of when starting my freshman year in the fall of '99. Back then, the possibilities were seemingly limitless. I was joining a successful Division III program with countless stories of mediocre high school runners becoming stars under our coach's tutelage, and naturally I thought I'd be next in line. In reality, I was perhaps a bit too mediocre and a bit too injury prone to become more than a back-end varsity cross country runner. In other sports, I'd have been called a role player or a journeyman; in XC, I was a 4-5-6 guy (i.e., 4th, 5th, or 6th scoring position on the team).

But while my dreams came crashing down to earth, I nonetheless developed a strong bond to the Williams XC program (at least in part because it's how I met my wife!), and I've since made the trek back to Williamstown for the alumni race ("Aluminum Bowl") as often as possible. This year would be my first time running the race since 2014, and I was pumped to get back out on the course. The course itself has gone through several reinventions since my time there, changing out of necessity as the local high school (where it's hosted) has modified first its playing fields and now its footprint. Despite some changes to the flow and layout, the wooded, hilly trails have remained the same, making it a classic and challenging XC course.

This year, the alumni race would be the only event of the day, making for a nice, low-key atmosphere with a focus on team and camaraderie across graduating classes. There were 50+ alums in attendance, though only a few from my era. We prepped with the requisite pre-race bear toss (Note: you can read about this odd tradition here) and then slotted into our starting spot on the line. The area we'd been assigned was quite narrow, so I got into the third row next to my other "old man" teammates and waited for the start. All of the current team's runners were also on the line, with most planning to do a workout on the course while the rest of us raced. The team is quite large (nearly 70 runners between the men and women), so there was the possibility of some chaos over the opening meters.

Pre-race photo of Williams XC alums in attendance.

Off the line, I got into the slipstream of my former teammate and captain, Dusty Lopez, now the assistant coach with the team (and host to my family during our weekend in town). Dusty was an outstanding runner at Williams and is always in good shape, so I figured I could do worse than stick with him during the race. We picked our way through the mass of runners that converged on the path around the playing fields to start the first mile. A few minutes in, he turned to me and said something to effect that I am the only person he wouldn't mind losing to. I took this as permission to pass and got ahead of him, hoping he'd hang with me and pick off a few more people together, something I was never fast enough to do with him while we were in school.

Opening sprint off the line. If you look really close, you can see a tiny bit of red from my hat above Dusty's head on the far left of the image.

The course heads up a hill and into the woods at ~0.75 miles, and this is where I needed to focus. I had decided to forgo my ankle braces because the trails are mostly well groomed, but a few rogue roots were waiting ahead to wreck my day should a misplaced footfall hit one. I had to slow some on the downhills out of necessity but otherwise was able to run fairly normally in this section.
At the mile mark (~5:30), I was in around 8th place. There were no studs in the race as there had been in years past, when the winners would run in the low-15s on this challenging course, so I could still see the big pack of leaders maybe 10 seconds ahead. The second mile contains the toughest terrain, though it starts modestly, continuing on the rolling trail that spits us out next to the high school's grass (!) track. It then re-enters the woods where the real fun begins. There is first a relatively short but steep hill, followed by a steeper downhill, then a gradual build to the crux of the course, a long (0.3 mile) hill that is revealed only after a nearly hairpin turn, and even then the top doesn't come into view until you've falsely summitted two other times. Finally, there's one last (very) steep downhill that gives back all of the elevation just gained and marks the end of the trail portion of the race. Through all of these undulations, I passed just two people but managed to hold my position and put some distance on those behind me.

The third mile is entirely on grass, crossing fields, the track, and some small rises, culminating in a variety of loops around and between the soccer and baseball fields where the race started. I was closing in on fifth place, a tall, younger runner, during the first part of this section. As I passed my coach, he yelled "Way to be in shape, Garvin!" which was surprisingly motivating. I used the surge of positivity to pass the young guy but couldn't shake him. A few hundred meters later, he passed me back and looked poised to hang on. I had no idea where the finish would be in this version of the course, and when I saw that we still had another turn and then a long straightaway, I decided it wasn't too late to reclaim 5th. I pretended to be running an all-out 200 on the track, and that little mental trick worked like a charm. I passed the guy back 50 meters before the line and held on for 5th overall, 3rd alumnus, in 17:05 (final mile 5:06). I later learned that the guy I passed was the 5K school record holder (14:17!) from the class of 2015 who clearly has not been training as seriously. Still, that was a bit of a confidence boost.

A younger version of me running on our home course in 2002. 

Afterward, my coach asked me to help him organize a kids' race, which consisted of my kids, Dusty's kids, and my classmate Tim's kids, as the other alumni in attendance were too young to have reached this phase of life. The kids mostly had a great time, though Maisie broke into tears midway when she realized that she wouldn't win. That's the competitive spirit I like to see in a four-year-old.

A few days after the race, I came across an article on my college coach, who's celebrating his 40th year at the helm of the program. There were two passages in particular I liked that really capture the spirit of love for running that he instills in the team:

"Pete has a true love for the sport, and that spirit is the foundation of our team's approach to running. In the midst of NCAA championships, technical workouts and complex training philosophy, GPS watches and heart rate monitors, Pete helps us remember that we run because we love to run. We love trails, we love working hard and we love our team." 

Farwell's end goal isn't to see his athletes compete well now, but rather to see them running and enjoying running years later. "The goal is for you to be running when you're 30, 40 or 60 rather than to run two seconds faster in the 5k when you are 21,"