Goal C: To enjoy a nice run in the forest on a pleasant fall day
Goal B: To pace myself better in a challenging trail race
Goal A: To finish 9.33 miles in less than 1:50
I first learned about the Hill Country Trail Race a bit more than a year ago, but was training for my first half-marathon at the time and decided not to risk my training with an unknown type of race. However this year I registered a few months in advance and was looking forward to a nice run in the forest, in the "New Urban" community of Serenbe. I had visited the Inn and Farmhouse at Serenbe on a few occasions for farm-to-table dinners, but had never seen the growing community just a mile or so off of the main road.
The fall foliage has been particularly nice in Georgia this year. A couple of weeks ago, I joined a couple members of the Emory chemistry faculty on a 12-mile hike through the forest to the top of Brasstown Bald, the tallest hill in Georgia, and enjoyed the trek through the fallen leaves. A few days ago I looked up a bit of the chemistry behind the changes in leaf color with the season, and learned from a news article in Nature that green leaves contain both chlorophyll and carotenoids, and when the chlorophyll is not replenished with waning sunlight as autumn progresses, the yellow - orange carotenoids are no longer masked and show up as the dominant color in many leaves. But the striking red leaves on some trees are colored by another compound that is generated only in autumn, known as anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are also produced in the tissues of many flowers, and appear as different colors depending on the pH of the tissue, with red arising at acidic pH.  |
| Chemical structures of some representative compounds responsible for leaf colors |
It took only about an hour to drive from my home to Serenbe, without any traffic early on Saturday morning. I had not run at all since Monday, due to a combination of a busy schedule at work and heavy thunderstorms causing the cancellation of the usual Tucker Running Club group run on Wednesday evening. However the weather has been beautiful for the past few days and I assumed that the ground would have mostly dried out by now. The temperature at the start was around 50 deg F with some warmth from the sun.
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| Shortly before the 15K start. I wore orange for a reason! Read on... |
The race began on the main street of the Serenbe community. The 5K runners departed first, getting about a 10-minute head start, and then the hard core 15K runners lined up. With a few casual announcements about a "mountain" shortly before the 3-mile mark and some mud along the route "but you're trail runners", the airhorn sounded and we started. The first mile was on asphalt and I easily ran a 9-minute mile without exerting myself. Then we turned onto the first trail and immediately had to navigate through some muddy rutted trails! We had not gone more than a few hundred feet before a runner in front of me tripped over a tree root, hidden by a layer of leaves! Fortunately he wasn't hurt and was making a joke about scoring a "9" for his flip - and then it was my turn right before the 2-mile mark. I decided not to fight to stay on my feet and rolled into a soft bed of leaves, quickly getting back up and running again hardly losing a beat! Fortunately I wasn't injured, but it took a full mile of running before the big toe that I had stubbed on a tree root stopped throbbing.
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| The race route. The mile markers measured on my Garmin are not accurate, probably due to elevation changes and switchbacks. The mile markers do provide general information where I was at the beginning, middle, and end of the race. The Garmin recorded a distance of 8.87 miles, whereas a 15K route is 9.33 miles. |
We crossed a wooden bridge over a creek, and saw some of the faster runners returning in our direction. Then our path took a left turn, and there it was, the "mountain"! Conserving energy, everyone slowed to a walk as we marched up a rather steep slope. Climbing about 100 feet, each runner began to speed up to a jog as s/he crested the top, only to slow down to safely navigate a trail downhill that was just as steep as the one that we had just climbed! That was definitely a slow mile, yet I passed the 3-mile marker before 30 minutes had passed on my Garmin. Upon making a turn at the 4-mile marker, an older man in front of me fell, but quickly got back to his feet. We chatted for a moment as we jogged together. He was trying his first trail race and was just hoping to finish. I tried to console him by telling him that I had also fallen earlier in the race.
We then re-entered the community, with the race organizer encouraging us to enjoy a run about the lake, taking a gravel trail past the back yards of several lakeside houses. After returning to the dirt trail through the forest, we climbed a hill to reach the 5-mile marker. During some of the walk breaks, I pulled out my cellphone and took a few photos. Other runners streamed past, but my attitude was that I wasn't going to win anything, and part of enjoying my run through the forest was to take a few photos to share on this blog. From time to time I heard what sounded like gunshots. As I think that November may be hunting season, that was the primary reason for wearing orange this morning! Then I thought, morbidly, of the cannon shots in "The Hunger Games" announcing when a contestant had died. And some of "The Hunger Games" movies were filmed in north Georgia....
Some time after the 5-mile marker, we briefly ran on a road. It was really nice to run on asphalt, even though it was only about 100 yards. We reached the first water stop, where virtually everyone stopped or slowed for a half-cup of water. At the last minute I had decided to carry my own water bottle, out of an abundance of caution, although most of the other runners relied completely on the water stop. Then we plunged into the forest again, leaping across some crossings of little creeks, struggling to avoid soaking our feet. In a flat section of the route, passing by a structure that looked like a giant treehouse, a runner about 100 feet ahead of me went down. A few of the other runners helped her to her feet, but she stood still for a long moment, hands on knees, apparently catching her breath. I was concerned that she might have been injured, but shortly before I caught up to her, she began running again.
Before long we had passed the 6-mile mark (59 minutes elapsed) and reached a road. It was evident that a right turn would have taken us to the finish - which apparently was the 5K route - but we took a left turn. The road went up a relatively gentle hill, so I took another photo of a horse surrounded by a flock of ducks.
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| I can hardly see the ducks and horse in this photo, but they are at the horizon, looking uphill. |
A race volunteer directed us into the forest, saying "just a loop and then run back to the finish". I thought that the loop wouldn't be that long, but in fact it was a full two miles. My legs were starting to ache from the changes in elevation, and I was thinking of how well this would strengthen me for an upcoming 10K in a flat community on Thanksgiving. In the meantime, my legs were feeling a bit rubbery, but I just kept moving forward as best as I could. After the 7-mile marker, we passed a waterfall that was a featured attraction of the race route. I stopped to take a photo, and had just safely returned my phone to a pocket when I fell again, this time sprawling forward on my stomach into the mud. Fortunately I wasn't injured but now my right hand and wrist were quite muddy, with mud even caked into the wristband of my Fitbit. The sudden stop also caused my left gluteus to ache with a slight muscle cramp and that really slowed me down, as several other runners passed me in this section.
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| There is a waterfall in the background of the photo. This might have turned out better if I had stopped moving before I snapped the photo. |
It took a long time to reach the 8-mile marker, and now my elapsed time was substantially beyond 80 minutes, but I hadn't expected to run a 10 minute / mile pace in this race. We were scrambling up and down trails of red Georgia mud, leaping over the occasional little creek. In the last one, I didn't get enough speed before jumping and nearly slid backward into the creek, but grabbed a little tree with my left hand and pulled myself forward. Finally, we reached the volunteer at the road once again, and he cheered us on with promises that the finish line wouldn't be too far. I estimated that it was about a mile to the finish, and tried to speed up. It took awhile for my legs to respond, but gradually I did find the higher gear. I had managed to conserve some energy on the slower miles on the trail, and now that we were on asphalt, I was running fairly well. Going up a gentle hill, I managed the occasional pass. Spotting the photographer ahead, I sped up a bit more as I passed a couple. Then there was the 9-mile sign! Only 3 minutes to go (or less), as I glanced at my watch to see 1:35 elapsed. I continued running strongly, passing some of the people that had earlier passed me in the last two miles on the trail. Then as we approached the first buildings of the community, the road turned gently downhill and I went into high gear. It seemed that no one around me was able to speed up, whereas I kept passing other runners even as the finish line came into view. I saw 1:38 on the clock, and nearly caught up to another finisher who managed to cross just a split second ahead of me. I was tired but didn't feel badly. I stepped into the clearing to get some sport drink, then went back to the finish area to watch a few of the others cross the line while I also tried to stretch a bit.
Conclusion: I'm not much of a trail runner. I'm so much more comfortable running on asphalt. It's not only the difficulty of the climbs and descents that concern me, but I really don't like falling in a race, and am grateful that I had soft landings in both instances. Nonetheless, I suppose I will continue to occasionally run a trail race once or twice a year, as I like being in the forest, but it's unlikely to become my major running activity. In any case, I wasn't disappointed at all in my result: today I ran a substantially faster overall pace than in my first trail race in August.
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