Mt. Washington Road Race - Race Report

My delay in writing this race report should pretty much give you an idea how I feel about the race. In fact, I hesitate to call it a "race report," since what I did could in no way be construed as racing. That being said, it was a great lesson learned.

I'm not going to go into many details of the race. I started. It was humid. I felt great for the first mile. Then I didn't feel great. I walked a lot. I passed about 15 people in the last .5 mile and looked like a total sandbagger.

In short, I just couldn't push myself. I couldn't get myself to that place. I couldn't really make myself work or suffer. I think my "suffer bucket" was empty after the 50k. And, if I'm not suffering, I'm not going to have a good result. Suffering is my strong suit. It was a very odd feeling. I wanted to race, but I just couldn't. It probably wouldn't have mattered much in another race, but this is the Mt. Washington Road Race. It's way too difficult to not be focused. It's more of a mental than a physical challenge, and I just didn't have the mental edge. Am I disappointed? Not really. I'm only slightly disappointed in the fact that it was a race, and I wasn't mentally ready to race. But, I'll be back because I know that I can run fast up that hill.

In the end, I ended up about 9 minutes slower than last year in 1:51:35. And, I wasn't particularly tired afterward, and I certainly wasn't sore the next day. Oh well.

On the upside, my Trail Monster comrades Jeff and Mindy had awesome races in the Rockpile debuts. I'm really happy for those guys. Hopefully next year, we'll have a full Trail Monster contingent to score in the team categories.

So, that was the Mt. Washington Road Race. The race was poor, but I learned a lesson. Onward.



My hair was perhaps the best part of the day. I have no idea how it ended up like that. Completely awesome, though.