The deets:
Every December USATF holds club cross country national championships, and every so often it's in San Francisco. Since this is one of those years, my team wanted to pull together teams for as many of the five races as possible (open women, masters women, open men, 40+ men, and 60+ men). The races were all in Golden Gate Park, & the masters women's race was 6K (about 3.6 miles). Originally I was planning on running CIM the weekend before so I thought I'd probably skip it, but since CIM didn't work out but I felt like I was on the upswing, I thought I could probably get through 6K without completely embarrassing myself.
Why did I sign up for this race?
Honestly, just for the team vibe and to have the experience. Our women's masters team had eight women signed up (five are required for a team) so we ran two teams -- our five fastest runners on the A team and the other three of us on the B team. I was injured this time last year and while I am only just *barely* not injured this year, I am in fact NOT injured, so I was excited to show up and participate in this special event!
And then what happened?
We started watching the weather early in the week and it seemed highly possible that a big winter wind/rainstorm could be settling right over SF on Saturday morning. Add to this the fact that there's been a lot of rain for the last week or two anyway and it seemed likely that we were looking at pretty muddy, sloppy conditions (i.e., proper cross country weather!).The big debate on the Slacks and the WhatsApps was shoes--what does one wear on a course that includes slippery grassy, mudpies/slides, gravel, a bit of pavement, and packed dirt/rocks? Spikes? Waffles? Trail shoes? Road super shoes? Throwaway training shoes??
A lot of folks seemed to feel that spikes were the the only way to go from a not-eating-shit perspective. But friends, I have not run in spikes in over 20 years, and given all the little foot and lower-leg injury things I'd been dealing with lately, it didn't seem like a 100% great idea. However, I was going out to do a little recon on the course anyway, so I found a pair of clearance spikes in my size (for like $28 lol) & decided to see how it felt.
Running in the slippery, soggy grass and mud, the spikes actually felt great--they were reasonably comfortable (as spikes go) and I felt very secure in them. But when I got to the harder, rockier, gravel and paved parts of the course, they were a nightmare. I mean I know people suck it up on hard surfaces in spikes all the time but for me it was *really* uncomfortable and given how stiff and hard and un-cushioned they are and the fact that I was only juuuust barely NOT hurt, I felt like racing in them would be just asking for a foot or ankle injury of some kind.
So, like a lot of other people, I decided to go with trail shoes. Yes they're a bit heavier and not nearly as secure on one's foot, but personally I really thought I needed the cushioning and the grip, especially on the harder, rockier sections. Of course, the big unknown was what the rain would do overnight or early in the morning.
Race Day:
When I first got up, it wasn't really raining, but there was already crap all over the roads driving to the park and I saw several small trees and branches that had been blown down. There were five races starting between 9:00am and 12:30am (masters women, 60+ men, 40+ men, open men, & open women), with the masters women up first.
Our club had rented a bus to park at the start so that people would have a dry place to store gear and a little more dry space to change; our team of eight arrived mostly between 7:30 & 8:00am, got our many bibs and tags from our team captain, & headed out to warm up with a loop of part of the course. It was already super windy and definitely much muddier than it had been when I'd jogged it the day before, and I was starting to feel very lucky that we were getting the first crack at the course before it was completely destroyed by a thousand some odd other runners (many probably in spikes)!
At about 8:50am we lined up in our assigned lane. Not even kidding, at about 8:55am, the skies opened up and the rain really started coming down! Thankfully it wasn't super cold, but it was clear we were going to be treated to some proper cross country conditions!
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At 9:00am the 243 of us took off across Speedway Meadow towards the Polo Field. Any time I run a PA cross country race, there are always so many insanely fast women and the distances always sound so short on paper (usually 3-4 miles) that it's incredibly difficult for me not to go out waaaaay too fast and end up sucking wind a mile later. Having run the course yesterday, I was a little bit better prepared than usual to start off conservatively. Even at my best I am *never* better than midpack at these races and I was absolutely nowhere even close to my best! My only goals were to run hard but within my current ability, finish strong, and avoid face planting in the mud. If that meant running no faster than when I'd jogged it the day before, then oh well!
The first part of the race went west through Speedway Meadow, up onto the Polo Field horse track for one loop, then back out onto Speedway Meadow heading east. Going west is a bit downhill and east a bit uphill, so that second stretch back through the meadow was the first really tough bit for me. The massive wind did not help. My legs felt really tired (and running on squishy grass in trail shoes is hard) and part of me REALLY wanted to walk even then. But I knew once we made the turn onto the rocky path along JFK drive and started heading back west, things would get a bit easier again.
Sure enough, I recovered a bit in that downhill stretch and started to feel better again. There were several big, muddy puddles that went all the way up to my ankles and very quickly my shoes and socks were 100% soaked in cold, muddy water. Such cross country! Then it was left/south up chain of lakes drive, through another meadow I was familiar with from the usual PA course, and finally up the one truly challenging hill of the entire race. By this time my quads were absolutely screaming and I actually had to trudge up the last bit of it rather than running, and honestly did NOT want to start running again once we hit the top!
Soon we hit three miles, and the last .6 miles of the course was another ~3/4 of a lap or so of the horse track to the finish line. I'm always trying to save just a little bit of something for some sort of kick at the end of a race, however feeble, but friends, at this point I had nothing, nothing, and part of me was like, "Oof, I am not sure we are going to make it all the way back around, maybe just drop out now?" We hit the turnaround and headed back toward the finish into a massive headwind. Even with like a tenth of a mile left to go I couldn't come up with *anything* extra and was still thinking, "How on earth am I supposed to get all the way to the finish line, it is like sooooo far?!?!?"
But of course, finish I did! My teammates were waiting, and as the slowest person on the team (i.e., the last person they were waiting on for a photo), I once again look barely human in the post-race team pic!
Official: 29:55 / 3.6 miles / 8:02 pace
Garmin: 30:31 / 3.7 miles / 8:14 pace
Unfortunately during the second race (60+ men), the wind knocked down a giant tree near the course, and so the last three races (40+ men, open men, & open women) were moved to the Polo Fields where the runners just had to do laps. Yet again I felt super lucky that the masters women were able to run first on the real course.
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In spite of the weather and being totally out of shape, it was so much fun just to experience and participate in this event, particularly with a team. One more PA race next Sunday (Christmas Relays) and my 2022 race season will be in the books!
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