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2019 GVH Lagoon Valley XC Challenge race recap – Vacaville, CA

2019 GVH Lagoon Valley XC Challenge race recap – Vacaville, CA

Another weekend, another XC meet, yeah! Since I’m deferring my CIM registration to 2020, and I still haven’t decided if I’m pursuing a 50k in its absence this year (or chasing something else), I’ve made it a goal to complete as many of the 11 PA cross-country races as I can. I call this training block “get strong and fast by way of cross-country,” and so far, so good. 

Saturday’s 3-mile cross-country race in Vacaville, at the Lagoon Valley Challenge, put on by the Golden Valley Harriers, was the third race of the PA series and — bonus! — was in its inaugural year. Hooray for new races! 

Getting to Vacaville meant a solid ~90 minutes drive each way early Saturday morning, but fortunately, my teammate (and extremely talented runner) Claire and I chatted it up for the commute’s entirety both ways. The race registration page advised that the races would be starting earlier than usual “to take advantage of the cool delta mornings” and that the masters men would be competing first, then the open women, and then the open men. Claire and I arrived with just enough time to complete a 2 mile warm-up with our teammate Heather, cheer for Isaac (who was our solo masters men runner), and toe the line. All of us were pretty profusely sweating by the time we reached the starting line at 8:45am (foreshadowing!).

cheering during the masters men race for Isaac. beautiful (and hot!) morning, indeed

A refreshing aspect to running new distances, in new-to-you places, and cross-country style, is that you don’t know what you don’t know. Right before we toed the line, Heather’s dad (who had just run the masters men’s race) laughingly told us that the Big Mama hill we’d be running in the first mile was “the steepest hill in all of the PA cross country circuit.” Dubious of his claim, we three immediately quizzed him of Big Mama’s steepness in relation to some of the well-known hills on the PA circuit — Santa Cruz?! Garin?! and the like — to which he unabashedly claimed that Big Mama dwarfed them all. Isaac also confirmed Heather’s dad’s claim, mentioning that “Big Mama don’t play” and that the second pronounced hill we’d run later in the race, Little Sister, wasn’t nearly as steep or long but that she, too, would make us work.

right before the ladies’ race began. we were one woman shy of a full team that day, drag! (PC: Isaac/WRC)

Well… brilliant. 

Being on the starting line of a new race, in a new-to-me place, knowing that it was likely going to be very, very uncomfortable is such a weird experience. It’s always the same thing: we can make it really easy for ourselves, or we can make it rather uncomfortable. Reveling, if not delighting (or pretending to delight) in the discomfort and “suffering” we’ve elected to pursue in that moment is pretty strange when you think about it. It’s a question that people who don’t run for fun often ask runners: why do you pay money to do this to yourself? And it’s an honest question. Personally, my answers change all the time, but one long-standing response is simply because I can. Most days, that’s enough.

Like several of the other PA XC races I’ve run, the Lagoon Valley iteration had runners racing on a course that featured some out-and-backs and step retracing, which makes it really hard to describe but also very convenient to support our teammates. (The GVH site features a helpful video and course map, in case you’d like more details). Much of the 3 mile course was actually very flat (and very dusty at this time of year), but the Big Mama climb in the first mile and the Little Sister climb in the second definitely shook things up. For local friends, Big Mama was akin to North Rim in ARP — just a long, slow climb — whereas Little Sister was considerably more abbreviated, practically more of a hiccup than anything. 

somewhere between miles 1 and 2 (post-Mama, pre-Sister) (PC: WRC)

The racing field size felt smaller to me than those of the previous weekends’, so I felt like I got off the line pretty easily and held my position well throughout much of the first mile. By the time we got to Big Mama, I was amazed — and completely surprised — to see many runners in my immediate vicinity actually walking up the hill instead of running. No judgment here, promise! Walking (or power-hiking, whatever you want to call it) is definitely a wise strategy on the trails because for most people, on the steep stuff (ascents or descents), it’s a more prudent energy expenditure to hike than run; even the pros will walk or hike from time to time. Hell, when it makes sense to, I’ll walk without question on a hard trail.

However, I’ve never seen another fellow lady racer in my vicinity in a PA XC race walk any hills, so I was completely taken aback. To be honest, when I saw so many other women in my vicinity walking up Big Mama, I wondered if maybe I should do the same; like I said, there’s no shame. I will definitely walk up ascents (or down rough descents) on certain trails when I feel like it’s a more judicious use of my energy. On Big Mama, anyway, I felt ok enough when I was very slowly running, so I kept at it and just kept chugging away uphill. 

By the time I got to the top, I felt tired but not completely wiped out, and then, right as we began descending, shortly after the first mile marker, my legs felt like a chemistry experiment was unfolding within them. I tried to make up any time I lost on the ascent by descending quickly, but holy moly, no doubt between the stress of ascending as fast as I could and then trying to descend quickly (without flying face-first down the thing and thusly eating shit), my legs were BEAT … at mile one! Add to that the incessant braking I was doing (see the aforementioned I didn’t want to eat shit commentary), and yeah. *That’s* what my quads have been feeling for the past 3 days post-race. Yowza.

Once we descended Big Mama and resumed flatlands running for a bit, I regrettably surrendered six positions between miles 1 and 2. Augh! I felt like my legs were holding on for dear life, like that chemistry experiment that showed up at mile 1 was still brewing for a little bit longer. I did the only thing I could do, which was just to keep trying to keep.things.moving, waiting for a second burst of speed and turnover. As the race wore on, about halfway through mile 2, we ascended Little Sister — which was short and sweet and a bit of a momentary reprieve from running fast on the flats — and once we were off her descent, we only had about .5 or so left before returning to the finish line, situated very close to the starting line, back in that same field. It wasn’t until the last half-mile or so that I gained one of the positions I had surrendered earlier, and I finished as hard and fast as I could. My Garmin data indicates that I had a good-for-me finishing kick, which, hey, I’ll take the victories as I can get ’em.

It was hard and fun; in a word: satisfying.

laugh-grimace-smiling right before the finish bc running makes us all so pretty, doesn’t it (PC: Isaac/WRC)

Surely, I’m a broken record by now, but damn: this cross-country stuff is tough! I’m super grateful that we had an earlier start time than usual because the morning continued to warm, and by the time I finished the race, I was dripping wet in sweat and beet red; never again will I fail to pack sunscreen in my XC bag. Claire, Heather, and I opted for some easy cool-down miles, punctuated (as always) by cheering for our open men’s team racers, and stopping frequently for water, whenever we could find some. Just like the previous two weekends at XC, it made for a 10-mile-and-change day, and I was satisfied with my effort and for mentally hanging with it when it got super uncomfortable. Paying $20 to go race hard in the dirt and over hills is one of the better investments I’ve made in my running in the recent past, long commutes and all. Oh, and fun fact: those six women who gapped me between miles 1 and 2 were all between 55-65 years old. *That* is inspiring. 

stopping mid-cooldown with Claire and Heather to cheer for our guys
that post-race sheen and burn (PC: WRC)

I’m looking forward to the rest of the cross-country PA series for the next few months and to continuing to try many new-to-me races. Kudos to GVH for organizing a fun and challenging race, and congrats to everyone for showing up and working hard on Saturday. (And reminder: my team, Wolfpack Running Club, is organizing Sunday’s Golden Gate Park Open in SF. Come one and all to this fun and hard course, and consider it a preview for the championship meet course that we’ll run in mid-November. See you there!)

most of the racing gang from Saturday’s Lagoon Valley race (PC: Andy/WRC)
look how much fun we have. you should come have fun with us. (PC: WRC)
2019 Santa Cruz Cross-Country (XC) Challenge Race Recap — Santa Cruz, CA

2019 Santa Cruz Cross-Country (XC) Challenge Race Recap — Santa Cruz, CA

With summer break rapidly coming to a close and the BioFreeze SF Marathon (or half marathon, anyway) behind me, so begins the most favorite time of year for many a runner: cross-country! I’m still relatively new to the XC world — the Santa Cruz Challenge race in ‘17 was my first go at this type of running, ever — but man, it’s fun. It’s really, really, hard, yet really, really fun. 

debut XC race at Santa Cruz a whopping two years ago!

Saturday was the PA-USATF XC (alphabet soup) series opener down in Santa Cruz, as has been the case for the past couple years, and I was looking forward to toeing the line not because I’m in any real racing shape to speak of but because XC is all about team and camaraderie. At least in these parts, XC races are segregated into open women’s, masters men, and open men fields, and what that (practically) means is that my male teammates can cheer for their lady teammates when we run and in return, we for them.

On paper, that sounds a lot less meaningful than it is in reality. Rarely am I ever afforded the opportunity to really support my teammates in races that I’m running alongside them, but XC is one of those rare instances in the racing world where I can. If you run, you know how much it means to have people on the sidelines cheering for you who really “get” what you’re experiencing mid-race. Add to that the fact that they’re your teammates, and well, at the risk of sounding silly, it’s really pretty special.

masters men at this year’s UCSC XC race (PC: WRC)
all the guys (open and masters, plus supporters) at this year’s SC XC race (PC: WRC)

Besides the cheering aspect — which is a lot of fun, in and of itself — the scoring dynamic in XC works in such a way that emphasizes strategy and finish placement much more than finishing time. In other words, it doesn’t matter if I finish many minutes behind the first overall female finisher or the first female finisher on my team; all of our finish placements help to determine how many points our team (and we, as individuals) earn. 

Perhaps that’s more XC scoring tedium than you came here for today, but suffice it to say that XC is equal parts unpredictable, fun, really tough, and very much a team endeavor. Everyone’s run matters.

I dig the simplicity (PC: WRC)

Saturday’s XC course at the University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC) campus was the same as it was when I ran this event the past two years, and it definitely hasn’t gotten any easier. There’s a lot of steep up and down action crammed into those four miles! In 2017, I did the race (and XC, in general) for the first time and had no idea what to expect; in 2018, I was four weeks post-racing at SF, wherein I felt like I had been hit by a truck, and at the XC meet, I paced like a fool and death-marched my way back home on the second lap of the 2-mile course. 

This time around, my singular goal was to not pace like an idiot and finish the thing with at least a modicum of self-respect. Plus, I wanted to help field a full women’s team. (Spoiler: success on all accounts, so YAY to that). 

Somewhat hilariously, after three consecutive days of 100+ temps in SJ, the UCSC campus greeted us with an abundance of fog, 50-60 degree temps, and incessant misty-rain basically the entire time we were there. (My feet were pruney for hours after I got home and showered). It made for a beautiful morning, though, and rather perfect running weather in my estimation. 

rounding the corner to finish the first lap (PC: WRC)

Anyway, the tl;dr version of my season opener XC race on Saturday was that while my time was a bit slower than last year’s, I negative split the race by about 4-5 seconds, held my place or moved up a few spots over the second lap, and all things considered, felt pretty strong. After fun-running the half at SF in late July, I’ve slowly been building mileage volume again, and as my kids have resumed school, my running routine has returned, too. I haven’t done a single workout since returning to home in SJ in late July — everything is easy, GA, or hilly/on trails — so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of speed on Saturday. It’ll come.

trying to run fast in the woods is super fun! (PC: Tom/WRC)

By the day’s end, I posted over 10 miles, all of them with my teammates, and honestly, I just felt jazzed to be out there and to be doing this type of running right now. That’s always been the joy and beauty of running, in my opinion: any surface, any distance, any speed… there really is something for everyone. Right now, this feels right.  

my hair is getting v v long. fishtail FTW (PC: WRC)
the open ladies team + supporters for the SC XC meet (PC: WRC)

One of my goals for this quarter is to run as much of the PA-USATF XC series as possible, given my weekend constraints throughout the season (read: swim meets … lots of swim meets), and to use this type of running to augment 50k training (possibly). Ah, yes, on that note: I’ll be deferring CIM because it conflicts with a local Junior Olympics (JO) swim meet. It’s not the end of the world, as I’m pretty sure CIM isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon; it just calls for a bit of a pivot in my training. It’s all good. It’s a no-brainer that I want to be there for my eldest (and at an event for which she has to qualify).  

the “post-race hair deconstruction” ritual alongside Mona, haha(PC: Tom/WRC)

This is the point in my race recap where I’ll again implore local readers to check out some of the races on the PA-USATF XC schedule. They’re all over northern California — from Santa Rosa, to Vacaville, SF, and all the way south to Santa Cruz — and I’ve always enjoyed myself at every race I’ve run. Your finishing time matters less than you think (see my notes above), and the environment is really laid back (yet competitive), encouraging, and just good ol’ fashioned fun. You don’t have to be on a team to participate (but if you’re looking for a team, hi!), and as far as races go in the Bay Area, XC ones are some of the most inexpensive/no-frills (but have I said how fun they are yet?!) options around. It’s you versus the land: running in its most primal context. Plus, Wolfpack will be hosting the Golden Gate Open at SF on Sunday, September 8th, and I’d love to see you there. 🙂 

forever thankful for wide-angle selfie mode 🙂 from our cooldown with teammates and friends post-race.

If you’re on the fence about jumping in some XC races in your area this fall, take this post as your sign, and come thank me later.