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FLRC Newsletter - September 2004 |
| Virgil Mountain Madness: It’s All About Mind Control | |
Last year I wrote up my experiences of running—and winning—the first ever 12K distance in the Virgil Mountain Madness trail race (www.virgilmountainmadness.info/engst.html).
This year's racing has been curtailed for me by what turned out to be completely minor health problems; I didn't train much the entire spring, and I haven't run a single speed workout in 2004. The only races I've run at all were the summer track meets, and although I knocked off a 10:18 3000 m and a 5:08 mile in the last track meet, there's a world of difference between a mile on the track and the gnarly and muddy trails of Virgil Mountain Madness. I almost didn't enter at all this year, putting the decision off until the last minute, but there was that title and course record to defend, and I've enjoyed few races as much as 2003's Madness, so Sunday found me dressed for racing.
Many coaches will tell you that some large percentage of racing well is mental—it's mind over matter. Given my low level of training for the year, I decided to concentrate on the mental aspects of the race by using my hitherto latent psychic powers to convince people faster than me to run the 30K. Why did I think this would work? Driving into Dryden, on the way to the race, I thought, "Hmm, I should make sure I'm driving 30 mph, since the Dryden cops are notorious for giving out speeding tickets for minor infractions of the speed limit." And then I worried that I'd get pulled over anyway, since one of the low beam headlights on my Subaru is burned out; I normally leave the lights on all the time, since they turn off with the ignition. But common sense told me that the chance of a cop seeing me and noticing that one light was burned out seemed really low in the daytime. Common sense was wrong, and my psychic powers were right: as I was making sure I was going exactly 30 mph, exactly what I had feared happened—luckily, the guy was being nice and just said it was a "courtesy stop."
Success in my new approach to racing came quickly—chatting with Tim Ingall as he was warming up, I was able to use my powers to convince him to run the 30K instead of the 12K, even though he'd never raced such a long distance. Hah! One serious competitor down.
But then came a tougher job. Lining up at the start, I saw Garrett Wagner, a 23-year-old speedster who's way out of my league. When I took second at the Tom B trail race last year, Garrett beat me by only 25 seconds. But at Danby Down 'n' Dirty, he not only destroyed me by almost 4 minutes, he beat Earl Steinbrecher by 37 seconds. My task was clear: I had to mentally convince Garrett that he needed to run the 30K. It had worked on Tim; perhaps it could work on Garrett.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much time before the start, despite some Rochester runners arriving just before the gun. I took off down the steep and rocky hill that starts all the Virgil Mountain races, with Garrett fast disappearing in the distance right away. He was followed by an older guy I didn't recognize, then me, and then by a number of people right behind me, including another 23-year-old named James Sweeney, who was carrying a water bottle.
At some point about 2 miles in, I made a mis-step in trying to get around a large mud hole and came to an almost complete stop in trying to avoid bashing into a tree. James went by me, and I tucked in behind. But boy, were my mental powers surging! First, the older guy I didn't recognize actually stopped, for no apparent reason, to let us both go by. Then, a few minutes after James passed me, I noticed that his right shoelace was untied (that's psychokinesis, for those keeping track), and I knew he wouldn't be able to keep up the pace with a loose shoe on those trails. Soon he realized the problem and stopped, letting me pass shortly before the power line cut.
I worked the entire power line road hard, and turned back into the woods, only to realize that there was more uphill that I hadn't remembered from last year. Still, I plugged away, only to find that James had caught up to me just before all the downhill stretches at the end of the first loop. I'm pretty good at bombing the hills, but I wasn't doing more than keeping up, which had me worried about what would happen when we hit the flat at the bottom.
We both turned onto the flat at basically the same time, got to the water stop that was being, umm, manned by a nun (hey, I might have been hallucinating, but I don't think so), and that's where I knew I had James for good. I grabbed my cup of water and took a sip, and blasted him with psychic instructions to run the 30K. He stopped, and—get this—filled his water bottle. At that point I knew I was home free; no one would fill a water bottle for the remainder of a 12K. Score another one for the paranormal!
Nonetheless, I dashed off ahead of him again, dancing through the rooted trails and taking the stream with a single bounce on the properly placed rock in the middle (I did drag my right foot slightly in the water, which cost me a few tenths of a point with the East German judges on style). Then it was a short hill up to the point where the 30K diverges from the 12K, and where I heard Tim Ingall yell encouragement to me (how the heck was he that close!) and I returned the favor. My legs were beat, and the water that had seeped into my shoes from all the mud puddles I couldn't evade was conspiring with my insoles to give me blisters under my arches. But I was sure my mental powers had kept James and Tim running the 30K, so there was nothing left to do but hammer on home.
As I turned onto the road that leads to the finish line, I saw a relaxed Garrett Wagner standing next to it, drinking a cup of water. Ah well, so much for that course record, and so much for my one-year title—strong though my mental powers might have been, they clearly worked only at short range, and I was never anywhere near Garrett after the first few meters.
Nonetheless, I pushed through to the finish and discovered that although I had come in second by 2 minutes and 17 seconds (Garrett ran a 51:10 to my 53:37), I had also beaten my previous year's time by 1 minute and 22 seconds, which isn't too shabby. Admittedly, last year's conditions were far worse, what with having to run upstream through running water on many of the trails, and although the battle with James Sweeney was exhausting, it made for a better time than running alone, as I'd done in 2003. James went on to win the 30K in 2:25:44, more than 5 minutes ahead of Tim, who did great even though he was running his longest race ever. The only things I regret about not running the 30K were seeing Dave Burbank in a tux, serving champagne to the runners, and seeing the Boris-specific directions that Dave and Gill Sharp had scattered along the longer course, just in case (though Boris didn't make it to this race).
The first woman in the 12K was Heather McLendon, one of the Rochester crowd that had arrived late. She was a bouncy blond, and when she zipped across the finish line in 1:10:57, she seemed barely winded, and had somehow managed to avoid getting covered in mud like the rest of us. A few minutes after finishing, someone told her there was food, and she dashed off to get some—clearly she hadn't run hard enough. I, on the other hand, needed to get a shirt on, since it was cold, but that involved walking back to the car, and since I couldn't manage much more than a hobble on my weakened legs and blistered feet, I decided that cold was the lesser of the discomforts and just stood around chatting until it was time to limp back to the car and drive home.
All in all, a tremendously successful race once again, and kudos to Dave Burbank and Gill Sharp for making it such a good time.
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