Race Report - Resolution Run

The first race of the year for me was one of my favorites - the Resolution Run in Auburn, CA. They have a 5K, a 10K, and a 10M race and the trails are always like slip-n-slide's because of the weather. This year was particularly wet and muddy since we have had a large amount of rain in December. I've done the 10K a few times and last year I tried the 10M for the first time. I decided to do that one again this year.

However, for a little extra challenge this year, I worked in an interesting "warmup" ...

The last 3 years, a group from Team Revolutions (a cycling group I am involved in) has done 10+ repeats of a notorious local hill up Beatty drive. It's a pretty tough little climb that takes me about 7-8 minutes to get up and tops out at around 15% I think. To kick-start 2011, I did 11 repeats. And to top it off, it was raining the whole time. The profile of my ride looks like this:

It's hard to see in the image, but the climb is less than a mile, but goes up about 380-400 feet in about three-quarters of a mile. About a 10% average for about 7 minutes. I was averaging about 280-300 watts for the climbs so it equated to about 75 minutes at just below threshold. The TSS for the ride was 130 - a nice little "warmup" for a hard, hilly, 10-mile trail running race!

The run was fun. The first 2 miles are basically downhill into the canyon, mostly on access roads. Then you hit a trail and turn around to climb right back up a bit. I was running in about 10th overall going down the hill, but had 3 guys ahead of me to chase. I caught the first one and passed easily. The next 2 I caught on the uphill portion of the access roads before you go down even further into the canyon. One guy stuck with me and we dropped the other guy easily. The one who was running with me was strong with a very quick turnover... he was just behind me until about mile 5 and then passed me on an uphill portion of trail. My legs were feeling the effort by this time and I couldn't go with him. The next part of the race goes on another out-and-back section of trial with lots of up and down and one really big climb on the return part of the loop. The guy I had been running with slowly pulled away, but we both gained ground on another guy. Approaching the turn-around point at mile ~7.5 I started seeing the 10-mile runners headed back the other way and could count to see what place I was in. At the time, I was in 8th and had 7th in my sights. I caught him at the turn-around, but from there, he put on the gas and I just didn't have a lot left for the final climb up to the finish. The last mile is on really sloppy, wet, muddy single track and mostly uphill. Profile of the race looks like this:

I just couldn't catch that last guy and finished in 8th overall and 3rd in my AG. I did it in 1:10:05, which is about 45 seconds or so slower than last year, when I was 7th overall and 4th AG. However, last year I did it fresh. So I was happy with the effort after the ride on Beatty and the legs were cooked the rest of the day for sure. A great kick start to 2011!!

Emily ran the race, too, and improved on her 10K time by 3+ minutes over last year. She won her AG last year, but got 2nd this year with a significantly faster time. Here's Emily on the trail:

And here's me on the trail:

I don't have any better pictures of us after the race, which is too bad, because you get pretty dirty. It's a really fun race and a great way to start the year.

Next up will be a half-marathon in early February. Bring on 2011.