Full Results Link

Downloadable google earth data available upon request. It's pretty cool, you can make it do a run through of the course.

Race Day Morning

Awoken at 4:45AM by my alarm, I snapped up and heated up the yummy kroger brand, low sugar, brown sugar maple instant oatmeal that I readied the night before. The goal was to get my heavier pre-race fuel in 3 hours before the start, which is a general rule of thumb to allow my body to metabolize it during the race.

I rode with Bradner from our hotel to get there earlier rather than later, and we were in Richmond by 6:15AM, with the race starting at 8AM. Temperatures were in the mid to low 30's, so I wore sweatpants and jacket to the starting area. With 5,000 marathoners, 8,000 half'ers, and 5,000 8k-ers with maybe as many spectators, it's always crazy near the start. But we still managed to find everyone from the team. I gave my sweatpants and jacket to Erika at 7:15 when she was checked her bag for her 7:30 half marathon. Needless to say that was way too early, with temps in the 30's and me just wearing short shorts and a singlet (thin tank top).

Staving off the frostbite by shivering, and making use of an alley (the port-o-john lines were outrageous), Chrissy, Carly, Stephan, Scott, Kevin, Greg, Aaron, Hannah and myself were all together in corral 1 in time for our start, and had made our way to the 3:30 pace guy.

First Half

Off the line, which is only took less than a minute for us to cross, it was a slow-ish start. Chrissy and I and our pack navigated the crowd, but it wasn't bad at all having to get around people. The first few miles flew by, logging some cold, but comfortable 7:55's.

I started to warm up after about 4 miles, but kept the gloves and arm warmers up for a long time (until like 16). Chrissy and Carly and I and Scott and Stephan were all just having fun, and trying to keep eachother from taking off because we felt so good. At the halfway point, I could just barely feel that my legs had exerted much effort, but could definitely feel how hard the pavement was in comparison to the trails we'd trained on.

Miles 16-23

Chrissy's stomach was acting up real bad, and she hadn't eaten yet at all. She found an open port-o-john a little earlier, and had caught back, but at 16 when she stopped again we never saw her. She said she almost caught us by mile 20, but by then her stomach had knotted completely and she couldn't run. After 16 when Chrissy stopped, Carly had stayed with the pace group and Stephan and I had more or less taken off from the group. We kept holding the high 7:40 pace, and got down into the low 7:40's. At about 18, I was talking out loud to Stephan about whether we should continue this pace and finally concluded (censored) "[screw] it, let's go for it" and meant that let's just gamble and see if we can hold this. We passed Greg and Aaron pretty quickly at mile 20, and I felt really great (not hurting at all) until mile 23. Then:

Miles 23-26.2

Not much more I can say about these than ouch. My legs suddenly didn't want to move anymore, but I mind-over-matter kept them rolling. Slowing to a 9:30 pace for the 24th mile made the pain in my legs tolerable, but I knew that I had about 28 minutes to complete the final 5k, and 9:30 wasn't going to cut it. Stephan didn't hit the wall as hard, and continued on.

I pushed harder, and suffered through a very arduous 25th mile at 9:10 pace. With only little more than a mile remaining, and seeing that I had only 9 minutes remaining, I tried for all I was worth to hit the gas. Carly came flying by, and not too long after her the faster of 3:30 pace guys came by me. The last mile was downhill, which made it hurt even worse, but I dug as deep as I could and found a final 8:18 somewhere. The last .4 (my Garmin actually had me at 26.4 because I didn't follow the best course, being in the crowd you can't) I was giving it everything, with absolutely nothing left in the tank, and I think that I remember seeing a sub-7 last .4, seeing as I was going with everything.

Here I am at probably one of the most painful times I've experienced (cross the line):

After Finishing

They put a huge medal around my neck as I finished, and all I wanted to do was get off my legs. I found a pleasant enough section of pavement next to the barrier (still in the finishing shoot) and sat down. I tried drinking some water, and stretching but I couldn't move my legs much or they'd instantly cramp. I was pretty much a physical, and emotional, wreck.  I hadn't seen Chrissy come through after a few minutes, and was almost sobbing when 3:35 passed and she hadn't made it. When she hadn't come through after half an hour, her parents and the rest of us were worrying, and it turned out that after her stomach knotted she just couldn't run anymore, and walked the last 6. She's pretty torn up about it as well, but she's in killer shape so she's pull together an awesome race soon.

As I laid there staring into space, Greg and Aaron finished and found me laying curled up on the pavement trying to drink some water. After 20 minutes or so Alex came and pulled me up (I literally didn't help), and I stumbled over and ate some pizza and drank some more water.

Conclusions

In my first marathon after running seriously for only about four months, I hit my goal time of 3:30 and couldn't be happier with that. If I hadn't blown up, I would've finished with Stephan two minutes earlier, but that's only two minutes. I might also have been able to walk better that night, but in only two days I've mostly recovered (just finished a nice 15 mile bike ride) and after swearing off marathoning during the race, can at least entertain the idea of another attempt (faster, of course).

Cross Country

On top of the mountain at Wisp, the temperatures were in the low 40's with wind gusts over 50MPH. Freaking cold and windy. I had packed light, and didn't have nearly the clothing I thought I would need, but turned out just fine. The cross country race was two, 8-mile laps that began at 9AM. Before the race, the majority of us were huddled in the resort's shop on top of the mountain trying desperately not to freeze.

As it goes, it never takes too long to get warmed up on a bike and I ended up being hot in the flannel jacket that I wore, but kept it on while sweating my butt off so I wouldn't just leave it in the woods. I ended up not getting it back after the race anyway, but oh well.

Off the gun, I got a good start and was the first rider into a short lap of a field before we hit the trails. Being the first one here was actually the worst, because they didn't have the turns marked at all in this field so the group cut inside of me on both turns and as we hit the trail, I was back in like 20th place. The start is important in these races, and this one very much so. The trail went downhill, and through some huge rocks and mud pits. Being behind so many people, one person doesn't make it though the rocks and everyone behind them is forced to get off and walk through that section. But the guys out front just ride on. So, I was stuck behind through this really gnarly section and lost a couple minutes to the leaders. By the time we got out to where I could ride my bike around people, I gradually pulled up to like 5-6th, somewhere in there.

It was an extremely hilly course, as one would expect at a ski resort. We had gone down the mountain to begin, rode a couple miles at the bottom, and went up and down to the top for the rest. The climbs were not technical, mostly on fire roads.

After the first lap a good number of people behind me had given up because of the cold and the combination of getting wet and muddy from a really tough course. I pushed on for one more, and without a crowd in front of me, was able to clean the really tough downhill. That was sweet, and I knew that I had made up a good chunk of time on Bill who was in 5th in front of me. I caught him on an uphill, and we rode together for awhile. I was bummed to see Andy W on the side of the trail, he'd gotten a flat.

On the uphill, I picked up the pace for the steep parts until I was out of Bill's sight, and just kept going hard till the finish. Passing those two, I finished in fourth place. Bill wasn't too too far behind, and Andy W had managed to fight back to 6th after borrowing a pump from Branson Holt of NC State.

Short Track

We had not too much more than an hour and half to warm up for the short track, but with a hint of sunlight it got to be closer to 50 by the time we were headed back out. It was pretty sweet how close our house was to the course again.

This is my favorite short track course of the year, and it lived up to expectations. It's got a mix of everything: super fun table-tops and jumps, a technical rock garden, and a small climb.

Without too much detail, I really enjoyed the race, and got 2nd ahead of Andy W and behind some NCSU guy on a rigid 29er. I didn't clean the rock garden every time which was slightly disappointing, but was airing out the jumps and having a blast.

Super D

The three Men's B (Bill, Andy W, and I) debated for awhile whether or not we wanted to do the "Super D." The race is a mass-leman-start downhill, which sounds like bad news and generally is. The fact that we run to our bikes helps to spread the group out before hitting the steep downhills and jumps, but it's still super sketchy. Maybe it should be called a "Super S." One of the guys who came for the weekend to do just the downhill stuff offered me his sick downhill bike, and having *thought* the course wasn't so terrible from the year before, I decided I wanted to do it. Which meant the other two were doing it too, Bill was indifferent and Andy didn't want to do it, but I figured hey we were there to ride bikes.

Cody's bike that I borrowed is a Trek Session, their top of the line downhill bike that has dual suspension and 8" of suspension travel on the front (compared to my 3"). It's pretty heavy, but designed to eat up jumps and rocks going downhill. I'm not sure why, but most downhillers don't wear clipless pedals but opt for platforms that have lots of grip. I donned my running shoes and sweatpants for this one.

As the race began, I was one of the first to my bike and was headed down the hill ahead of the group. Someone was coming around to my left, and we both sprinted at the trail to be the first in. Well, the course was different from the year before, and instead of turning right into a 3ft tabletop, we went straight and hit a 6 or 7 foot jump. Needless to say, I was not ready to take that jump at the speed I was going, nor was it meant to be taken at that speed. I launched off into the air, and instantly my feet had come off of the pedals. I don't know how they can stay on without clips. We had hit the jump so fast that we totally cleared the landing, and without a bike underneath me, I went face-first into the dirt.

I stood up and first checked that my nose wasn't broken, and was quite surprised that it didn't hurt too much to move. I wiped my mouth and it was bleeding, and spit out some blood. My teeth were good, and I got back on the bike to just roll down the course. No chance that I was catching anyone, but I was somehow mostly fine. Rolling through the finish line a minute behind everyone else, looking like I got punching the mouth, I found our team and got them to look at my face. I felt fine, but that doesn't usually mean too much. But I just had a scrape on my lip, and my lips were kinda puffy, but no real gashes or anything. Lucky.

When I got back to the house I cleaned up, and learned that not only had I crashed on that first jump, but so had the first guy in each of the other two fields. And they were both from Tech as well. Both of them turned out fine in the end, and one was already back at the house. The other, Jake, didn't remember where he was so his parents had rushed him to the ER. Christian had broken his helmet in the crash, and head injuries aren't something to mess around with, so he was definitely going to go get checked out. I felt totally fine, but there was no reason not to go and make sure I was good.

Jacob and Cecil drove us to the ER, and neither of us had concussions. They x-rayed my neck to make sure I hadn't done any damage, and I was good. The doctor actually told me "you're good to race tomorrow." Not that I had any intention of racing, that was good to hear.

Celebration/Chillin

While five of us were at the hospital, they had given out the awards. With only two gravity races the next day, we had officially won conference! As it turns out, there are separate categories called "cross-country" and "gravity" for each class, and since the pedaling stuff was done, they added up the points and Andy W won Men's B. So I was second, and I'm interested to see by how much because it had to be like 400-399 close. All in all, we had won the conference as a team, and took 1st Men's A (Jacob A), 1-2-3 Men's B (Andy W, me, Bill L), 1st Men's C (Cody B), and 1st Women's A (Kay). Pretty killer result as a team!!

We had a small celebration that night, and like most of our team, today I didn't end up doing either the downhill or the dual slalom races. I was cleared, but both courses were super intense and I didn't feel like banging my face again. We hung out and watched as a few of our guys competed, tried to do HW, and came home successful in our quest to defend the title.

Friday night we went to Mellow Mushroom in Boone for dinner, and it was quite good. The pizza was excellent (veggie supreme) and so was the beer. They had like 40 taps, and we split pitchers of all of the good local and season stuff. After dinner some of us went downtown to check out the scene in Boone NC and it was cool. Lots of mullets and mustaches.

The cross country (XC) course was fun, it was hilly and rocky/rooty but very rideable. Men's B [I] did three laps, and on the third lap I cleaned the course, there were two small rooty, and very steep sections that were tricky because they were after some water. The start was kinda crazy, we took off up a big fire road climb and I fell from third back to like 20th as we hit the single track, but most of those people hit the hill way too hard and it wasn't long before I was riding in something like 7th-8th. ASU's Ashley James was ahead of me, and I caught her on the first lap, and we rode pretty much together for the remainder of the race, myself finishing about 30 seconds ahead. It was a bummer when I saw Andy W on the side of one of the very steep sections, because he had crashed and broken his chain.  He let me know that I was actually in 5th place which was pretty cool. Toward the end of the third lap, I heard someone catching me and saw two ASU jerseys not far behind. Thinking that they were some Men's B, or Ashley killing it, I sped up and tried to hold my place. But they caught me in a few minutes, and it was two ASU dudes. As they went around (I let them right around because they were clearly going a lot faster) I asked them if they were Men's Bs. They replied that "No, were A's." The A race had started 5 minutes before ours, so I was confused and asked "How did you get behind me?" And then the way he said it made it funny because I was clearly very confused, when he "Nah, we're lappin you brah." The 'brah' was pretty funny how he said it, just real chill.

All of us were tired from the XC, but with less than an hour we had to race the short track (ST). Usually my favorite discipline, I wasn't particularly excited to compel my legs into pedaling hard for half an hour. The gun went off, and I sprinted off, going into the trail in third place, behind Bill Lucy who was behind Zion from ASU. The course went like this: S/F line on gravel road, 200ft more gravel, sharp right onto single track, loop through a couple trees, down a rooty steep little thing, dodge a couple trees, roll up around a tree, steep little uphill switchback, gradual climb to a rocky/rooty section, then back out onto the gravel road into a 180 turn, then the straight until the right into the woods again. Perhaps that was too much detail, but anyway I was right on Bill's wheel for the first couple laps and ASU was opening up a decent lead on us. I told Bill to hit it, and we sped up, but I went around him the next lap on the fire road. I pedaled hard on the road and braked less in the woods, and gradually chased down ASU. We were both hauling, and by the time I'd caught him, we were both pretty far from anyone else. I went around him, and continued to jam. He got about 300ft behind me, and I was hurtin, and he started to pull me back in. He eventually caught up to me, and there were about 8 laps to go. We rode hard together for a couple, neither of us able to open up a lead, and then together we slowed with 4-5 laps to go, anticipating the sprint finish. I told Zion (I had learned his names from ASU's cheering him on lol) that we needed to make sure we didn't go too slow that we got caught as I sat on his wheel resting for a few laps, and he assured me that we had a half lap on the field. With two laps to go, we began to ramp it up, and I was on his wheel up the small steep climb when something on my bike went snap, and I was suddenly without a chain! AHHH! I shouted out of the woods "VT get me a bike!!" as Zion rode away and ran with my bike. I was slightly freaking out, and kept hopping back on and trying the pedal because that's the instinct after running with the bike. I came out of the woods pushing my bike, and at the S/F the official let me know that I couldn't borrow a bike, I had to finish with only the equipment I started with. I was sooo frustrated, ready to finally win a short track with a good deal of certainty that I had Zion in a sprint. Running the final lap, I finished in 6th place... Eventually I cooled down, but dang was I frustrated. But, that's how it goes, and I certainly wasn't the only one on our team that had mechanical failures (the only one winning while it happened though), Robby and Andy had both broken chains earlier in the day.

I should get to HW, but quickly the races on Sunday were super fun. The TT was an 8-minute hammer fest, with a suuuuuper fun and flowly downhill that was also part of the Super-D course. The downhill course itself was sick, with table-tops and even a question mark berm. It amazes me that in a TT so short, and myself crushing as hard as possible, that Jake A and Christian could do that course 30 seconds faster. They took 1-3 in Men's A, and Andy W and I took 3-1 in Men's B, respectively.

Cross practice tonight at 6 on the MTB? Sounds like plan. Algebra till then.