Race Report: BYB Wakefield

The race reports are going to be coming fast and furious now. Well, until next week. Three races all in a row may test my report-writing capabilities.

BYB at Wakefield is a 5.5 mile course that is about half fire road (if you include the prologue on the pavement} and half single track. It is also pretty flat. This means it is the fastest course of the series and the most suited to the road runners. And that means, it is always a challenge for me, even though I seem to go into it every year thinking it is the "easy" one.

Sunday was gorgeous, about 10 degrees warmer than last week at the start and getting warmer. I was worried about the trail conditions after a wet week, but they had dried pretty well with very little standing water.

At the start I found myself lined up right next to the woman in my age group who won our group and the overall last week. We wished each other well, then the siren went and I watched her take off like a rocket. I was already pushing myself for a fast start, so I didn't even try to keep up, but I kept her in sight as long as I could.

The race was fairly uneventful: I paced off a teenager for a while, then passed her in the single track (this is the benefit of having those fast roadies out there with us), I had some kind of Pavlovian response to my watch beeping at 3 miles, wondering what I was doing and why I couldn't stick to something shorter, like a 5k, at about 4 miles I found myself wondering how the woman right in front of me was wearing a hat, neckwarmer, gloves, long sleeves and tights and still going so fast when I was starting to heat up in shorts and a t-shirt, I tweaked my ankle in the last mile or so, but it didn't bother me too much (until Wednesday, strangely enough). 

In general, my legs were at their limit for speed somewhere in the 2-3 mile - I am not sure I could have gone faster. But my breathing and cardio was fine until we hit the last uphill and headed down for the final stretch on the fire road. I guess this means my cardio system is in better shape than my running legs? Not sure, but I better not back off the running, what with 3 more of these to do.

In the end I finished 3rd OA with a 2nd in my AG again, a result that I was thrilled with on this course. And the temps had warmed up enough for the cheering crew to enjoy the post-race activities to the utmost (read: munchkins dancing to the race music and eating pizza at 10am).

Next: Shamrock Half in VA Beach...