The 2015 La Sportiva Mountain Cup
kicked off this weekend with the
Hillbilly Half Marathon in Olympia, Washington.
I was familiar with the course because I ran this race last year. It is an out
and back route that features some steep climbs, fast singletrack and feet deep
pools of mud.
 |
| Me and Quinn |
I started the early morning with
some
Expedition Espresso Trail Butter on a wrap. I was surprised and bummed to
find some mold on the wrap when I pulled it out of the bag. I decided to just
tear off the bluish green circles until it looked more like a slice of Swiss
cheese, then squeezed on the TB and wrapped up a banana. Messy, but good. As
sound dietetic practice I encourage people to throw out moldy and/or
contaminated foods, but in the instance of race preparation, this is an
exception to the rule.
 |
| Pre-race lovin' with Sarah. |
The weather felt and smelled of
cross country as we walked out of the hotel; crisp, clear and clean with sunny
blue skies. Not at all your typical PNW March weather, but a welcome change to
last year's monsoon. Once at the course, we chatted briefly with Quinn, the La
Sportiva Field Marketing Coordinator and my La Sportiva teammates that flew in
from Wyoming, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Utah.
 |
| Wishing I had my sunglasses. |
Leading up to the race I had some
knee pain that forced me to take a day off and adjust the plan.
And, dead legs at the beginning of the week caused
me to cut my Wednesday workout. With all of that it wasn't too surprising when
I felt prematurely labored and heavy as we started the immediate climb up to
Capitol Peak. I followed the heels of the woman in front of me until she started
to pull away at 3 miles. At about 3.5 miles there was a large road block of
logs that had flagging to go around them to the right. The man in front of me
started to go to the left and I yelled ahead to him that I thought we were to
go right. To make sure I was correct, I changed the view on my Suunto to show
the map of the course. We were headed the right direction.
 |
| Feelin' the hurt. |
I caught up to the man ahead of
me and worked with him to push to the top of the turn-around. Shortly after I
turned to head back down the mountain I saw the woman who was previously ahead now
less than 2 minutes behind. I knew she must have taken a wrong turn and was trying
to make up ground. Just like last year, I ran scared the last 6.5 miles to hold
the lead.
I pulled off the win and despite
not feeling 100%, ran 1:37:00, which is 33 seconds under Megan Kimmel's course
record, and 2 minutes and 32 seconds faster than last year. For full race
results click
here. This race was a good reminder of how important it is to
keep your head in the game despite how you feel. You never know how the race
will unfold, what is happening ahead or behind you and sometimes you are
capable of giving a lot more than you think you can.
 |
| Ryan Woods (1st place male), me, Bret Ferrier (3rd place male). Go Sportiva! |
.jpg) |
| Sweet race swag. |
A big thank you to
Seven HillsRunning Shop for the $100 gift certificate, to
Pope Press Olympia for the unique
and beautiful print to commemorate this year's run and to all the folks at
Guerilla
Running, congratulations on another successful year.
