Golden Gate Canyon Trail Half-Marathon
Today I ran the Golden Gate Canyon Trail Half-Marathon. Although only 12.7 miles, as the website says "You won't be disappointed". Indeed, I wasn't.
I didn't really have many expectations for this race. I've wanted to do it for the last 3 years, but last year it wasn't run, and the years before it didn't fit into my schedule. I haven't run more than an hour since mid-July (this includes Pikes Peak - I certainly didn't run for more than an hour there), so I knew I wouldn't really be in shape to "race" it - but nonetheless I figured it would be a great run in a cool area. Because of this attitude, I think I tricked myself into thinking it would be easy. Alas, it was anything but.
I pulled into the parking lot at about 8:00am. The race didn't start until 9, but the directions said to get there early, and I wasn't sure how long the drive would take. I was dressed in running shorts, and short sleeve t-shirt, with a lightweight fleece that I never use for running. Of course it was windy and cold. good times, good times. I hunkered down in my car for the next hour, alternating between reading the New York Times and watching other races with their warmups - some of which were actually running up the first hill. As 9:00 neared it was still pretty windy and I even contemplated bailing on the race and just going to get some breakfast. But soon the sun came out and we all lined up at the starting line. I'm guessing there were 60-70 racers, and there were actually quite a few of us jockeying for position at the back. Adam gave some brief instructions, assured us that the wind wouldn't be an issue once we were in the trees, and then we were off.
I had studied the elevation profile enough to know that the first 2 miles were all uphill. Nice. shouldn't be a problem not to go out too hard. :) We were quickly on the single track and I settled into a nice pace of 12+ mins/mile with a couple of other runners. The effort didn't feel too hard, but my heart rate was definitely up there - I knew it would be a tough way to start the day, but one goal I had was to run as much of the course (all?) as I could. I succeeded in this for the first 2.5 miles, and then it got TOO STEEP and TOO ROCKY for the
I started feeling pretty good around mile 5 or so. This course had a bit of everything - smooth and fast, steep and rocky, mostly in the trees, but some exposed places as well. The final climb was really tough - for the beginning part I doubt I was doing faster than 20:00 min/miles. The last 3 miles went by w/o issue, albeit slowly. My final time was a bit slower than I was hoping for, but given my lack of long runs it's not much of a surprise. The finish line had a ton of food - the homemade chili looked excellent even though I don't think my stomach could have handled it. I really enjoy these types of runs - low entry fee, no worthless shwag, and always plenty of food at the finish.
Here's my splits - I had problems with my watch and ended up with a couple of 1 second laps. Since my watch only stores 10 laps, I missed the last few splits.
Splits:
Mile 1: 12:35
Mile 2: 26:16 (13:41)
Mile 3: 38:44 (12:28)
MIle 4: 49:36 (10:52)
Mile 5: 1:04:21 (14:45)
Mile 6: 1:14:56 (10:35)
Mile 7: 1:27:11 (12:15)
Mile 8: 1:38:50 (11:39)
Mile 9: 1:52:30 (13:40)
Finish: 2:39:33 (47:03) - 3.7 miles = 12:42 pace. The last 3 miles I estimate were 10:30 pace.
posted by Scott @ 1:17 PM
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