Mount Washington Road Race 2010: a sloooow race report

This race...  I don't know where to begin.  It was both the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and also something I'm desperate to do again.

I apologize if this goes on too long, but nothing I could write would do this race justice.  It really and truly is a race that you have to experience yourself.  So, I'm going to try to keep this short and illustrated.  I only wish I'd taken more pictures, and with a real camera (rather than my phone).

The Night Before

Going through the swag...

-a nice, wicking tee
-a copy of "New England Runner"
-a hat and long-sleeved shirt (these I paid extra for - I think the hat was $5 and the ls shirt maybe $15)
-and, miraculous wonder of wonders, a toothbrush.  The sponsor was Delta Dental.  Moments after saying, "A toothbrush! How weird!", I discovered that I hadn't packed mine.



Ritual laying out of the gear...

You don't realize how much stuff is involved in running a race until you see it all laid out.  Quickly: shoes, socks, arm warmers, LS shirt, number, compression socks, water bottle, Garmen, spibelt, sportsbeans, nuun, hat... I think that's all.

I never did wear the spibelt, and it ended up being too hot at the start for any of the layering clothes.  They had warned us, again and again, about the erratic nature of the weather and the need to bundle up as we go up the mountain.  That doesn't hold when it's in the upper 70s at the start.

Another note about gear: I wore the compression socks not because I'm of the caliber athlete that would experience a performance boost, but because I have concerns about my circulation (stupid blood clots).  I have no idea if this was valid or not.  I only saw a handful of people wearing them (they're becoming more commonplace in NYC).  Hard to say if they helped or not, but I did get a few compliments.

The Day Of

A mantra...

My friend Sarah reminded me here and on facebook to remember: relentless forward motion.  So I wrote it on my hand.  Never mind that I had sweated it off by mile 1, I still remembered.  And this was a crucial mantra, given how tempting it was to either stop or - worse! - move backwards.  Very tempting.




At the start...

Doesn't that mountain look far, far away?  Yes. It does.

The race starts at 10am.  The road closes at 9:30am, and they advise that drivers get up the mountain as early as feasible.  This meant that I was dropped off at the starting tent around 8:00am - with two long hours to wait.  And to be intimidated. And to use the porta potty, and to use it again.

I kept hearing certain maxims: it's not about hill work, it's about your overall cardio fitness level.  Or, use your half marathon time as a predictor.  The former I say is total malarkey.  And the latter may have been true on a day that wasn't scorchingly hot.  But we'll get there...

I asked a volunteer where the start was, and he pointed it out to me.  It was quite a ways back off the road.  "They want you to be able to see the mountain, I guess," he said. "But the race starts on a downhill!"  I then asked him for some advice, and he said, "Don't be afraid if you have to walk a little to get your heart rate back down.  I had to walk twice last year, but just for a few seconds."  I stammered something about walking a lot more, and he quickly added, "But I'm a 2:40 marathoner! I don't usually walk during races!"

My plan was simple: run for a bit, run slowly for a bit, then walk for a bit.  I had no idea what to expect or how hard it would be.  

I have to say, the people there were all super, super fit looking.  They were also all incredibly nice.  Almost everyone I talked to had done it before, typically multiple times.  This was also the most organized race I've ever done.  I know there were only 1,000 runners, but given the logistical difficulties inherent in this race, I was quite impressed.  There will be a new race director next year, and he has large shoes to fill as far as I'm concerned.

The course
Now, the good stuff.

Have you ever encountered one of those giant-seeming hills during a race, and just thought to yourself, "Man, I when will this damn thing end?"  Well.  Take that hill, make it steeper, and know that it will not end for another 7.5 miles.

Seriously.  The hill just doesn't end.  It's like a nightmare... and I would know, since I was having them nearly nightly the week before the race.

I really, really wish I had taken more pictures of the course.  Bear with me for some narration.

They fired a cannon at start, made us all repeat the race motto ("there's only one hill!") and we were off.  I hung back, knowing I'd be at the tail end.  I was nervous - terrified, in fact, and seeing the hill as we approached wasn't helping.  We started up, and by about 2/3rd of a mile I was walking.  I wouldn't run again.  I was not alone.  There was a woman running near me for about two miles - yes, running!  She did pull ahead eventually, but I kept up until I couldn't.

I had been warned that mile 1 was the easiest (it was), mile 2 was the hardest (maybe?), and mile 4 was the toughest psychologically (it was).  Miles 1-3 are meandering, slowly moving through densely wooded mountain.  It's amazing how much variability in grade there can be - and how much you'll notice it - in a road that just goes straight up.

There are flat parts, but they never last more than a few yards.  At points, the hill would appear to crest - but it never did.  If there was any downhill, I never felt it.

Miles 0-2: honestly, I did not believe I was going to make it.  I kept reminding myself that it always takes me a while to "click in" to a race groove, to get into that rhythm.  That never happened, not at all during the whole race.  Worse, my heart rate wouldn't go down, even when I stopped for water or a break.  Although I can see now from my Garmin results that it was actually where it should have been for most of the race, it felt brutal.

I crossed the halfway point at 1:24, well behind what I wanted (about 1:05-1:10) and dangerously close to the cut-off halfway mark (1:31).  A woman I had been walking near said that she had done the race five times, always under 2:30, but was done in by the heat this time through and just hoping to finish.  I clung to her for another mile until she lost me.

Mile 4 opened up.  Not quite above the tree line yet, but no cover anymore.  Suddenly, you could see.  How much further you had to go, how steep the hill was, how far away the summit was.  And it just seemed... unbearable.  Impossible.  Awful.

There were a lot of swear words running through my head at this point.

That damn* hill.  (*Damn was not the word I was using.)  You could see people ahead of you, but they were always above you, literally.  And you couldn't catch up.  And the hill would never end.

Mile 5-6 I don't really remember.  There was some amazing scenery, and there was me, plodding.  Around mile 6 I picked up this amazingly chipper, wonderful British-New Hampshirer named Brian.  He had a Camelbak and an amazing attitude and he got me through the rest of the race.  He had trained on a treadmill, emulating the entire thing even down to the splits (calculated to accommodate the differences in difficulty of each mile).

It was when I began walking with Brian that - for the first time in the race - I actually felt like I could and would finish.

It was hot at the start, and it only got hotter.  There was some shade for the first few miles, but not forever.  It got cooler as we went up, but not enough.  The summit was a balmy 62.5 degrees - and the record for the highest temperature ever recorded on the summit is 74, to give you some idea of how this ranks.  In some ways it was ideal, but mostly it was hot.  And sunny.  I got pretty burned.  (You didn't see sunblock laid out the night before, did you?  Because I am STUPID and didn't bring any.)

The finish is a 22% "wall".  Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I feared.  In any race, by the time I can see the finish line the race is done, and this was no exception.  When I got to the top of the wall, the announcer read my name and said, "And now she's going to run to the finish!"  I ignored him.  He repeated it.  So I ran.  I crossed the line, and I wanted to die.  But I didn't die; instead, I took my medal, sat down for a few minutes, and then climbed a few more feet to the true summit for the inevitable photo finish (see yesterday's post).  And then we drove down.  It should have been a harrowing drive, but after running up that bitch?  Yeah, whatever.

The volunteers in this race were particularly commendable.  The race has a policy of cleaning up after itself, which is especially tricky with the water stations.  The volunteers hustled up and down the mountain, picking up cups.  I saw one shimmy down some rocks into a stream to retrieve a cup that had fallen over the edge.  It was impressive.

Afterthoughts

I'll be thinking about this race for a while, I suspect.  I'm not in that bad of shape physically from it - some soreness in my hamstrings, but overall I was slow enough that I'm not too beat up.  Dairy Queen afterwards helped.  But I need to figure out what went wrong psychologically, since that hurt my race.

I knew of one vaguely comparable race in New York, two weeks ago, that I was told was good preparation for Mount Washington.  Honestly, I'm glad I didn't do that one, as I may have chickened out.  At only 8%, it would be significantly easier.  I'll try that race next year.  I'm still registered for the Pike's Peak Ascent, although I'm thinking it will be just too, too much for me this year.  And there's always the Mt. Lemmon Marathon in the back of my head... although I think I can't justify the travel.  Besides, I should put my training toward the Sears Willis Tower climb in November.  Yep, I'm registered for that already.

And I'll be back in the Mount Washington lottery again for next year.  And again.