Browsed by
Tag: PA-USATF

2019 Golden Gate Park XC Open race report – SF, CA

2019 Golden Gate Park XC Open race report – SF, CA

This past weekend brought the fourth cross-country race of the PA series, the Golden Gate Park Open, and of particular interest (and sentimentality) to me, my team, Wolfpack Running Club, hosted the event. This historic 4-mile, 2x2mile-looped course covered the same ground, in the same way, as it did when I last ran the course back in ‘17 at PA Champs, but this time around, things felt a little different.

our women’s and masters women’s teams (PC: WRC)

For the past two years that I’ve run the GGP Open, at this time of year, the course wasn’t the usual (and historic) Lindley Meadow iteration. Instead, back in ‘17, the organizers had to begin/end the course on the nearby polo fields to accommodate some permitting restrictions. That makes sense, since SF is a pretty big place and all, and people can reserve sections of GGP for whatever. (If memory serves, we couldn’t run the historic course in ‘17 because part of it was reserved for a birthday party.) 

our open men’s and masters men teams (PC: WRC)

Anyway, when it came time for the ‘18 iteration, the course repeated what it was the year prior, the non-historic, polo fields-style iteration. For someone like me — someone new to the PA XC scene — starting and ending the GGP Open on the polo fields, and not on Lindley Meadow, was no big deal simply because I didn’t know any better.

For local vets of the sport, however, the polo fields iteration of the GGP was a somewhat undesirable blip in the history of the event. Not having the historical perspective of a local racer who has been doing this stuff here for a long time, I’ve only known the GGP open as an event that began and ended at the polo fields; the PA championship race (“Champs”) in November was the only PA XC race that began and ended in the Meadow. 

the start of the women’s race (PC: WRC)
open men’s start (PC: WRC)

I’m belaboring the starting and ending nuances of the GGP Open course here because by virtue of my club hosting the event, I spent my non-racing moments of the morning assisting at same-day registration and interacting with a lot of runners. Multiple people expressed how happy they were that we weren’t “doing polo fields” that day. In fact, unprovoked by anything I said, one PA racer enthusiastically told me about how historic the Lindley Meadow course was and how happy he was that we were *finally* running that course for the GGP Open, insinuating that that was the “real” course. Suffice it to say that that runners (understandably) have strong opinions about these things. 

off the starting line and in the grass, trying not to slip, fall, or otherwise self-sabotage (PC: WRC)

Moving on, it’s here that I’ll note that I don’t have any startling revelations to share, nor can I speak to any of the behind-the-scenes intricacies that are entailed in organizing and hosting a cross-country race in a major city park in a large urban setting — I’ll gladly defer to Andy, our team’s race director, and Coach Lisa, his co-director, for that — but simply judging by the sheer number of Wolfpack members, friends, and family members who showed up to help out on the event morning, let me assure you… there’s a lot involved. A *lot*. 

one of the few stretches of pavement on the course (PC: WRC)

Many teammates came from all over the bay area (and beyond) to help out in some capacity (race day reg, course monitoring, finish line chute duties, you name it) and of course to also provide the sincere and heartfelt words of support and encouragement mid-race, to everyone racing, regardless of which team singlet was adorning their chest. We all know that those mid-race words matter, especially when you’re grinding and in the thick of it (and on this storied and hard AF course, no less!).    

right around the mile 1/3 markers, as you exit the singletrack and begin to plow through the gopher-pocked field (PC: WRC)

It’s with this amazing and soul-filling backdrop of knowing that it’s my team behind the scenes, putting on a lovely and well-executed show, that my actual race took place. A gaggle of women and I arrived hours early to help with event set-up, and with a little bit of time to spare, we ran one warm-up lap to scope out everything and re-acquaint ourselves with the terrain. No doubt this course is so storied in part because it’s so very prototypical cross-country: a grassy meadow start and finish, a minor stretch of asphalt, a gopher-pocked field, singletrack, a few bouts of sand, rocky and rooty patches, tiny-but-still-significant-when-you’re-trying-to-race-fast ascents and descents, and more. It’s one of those courses where you can’t help but think to yourself holy shit, we’ve only run (1 mile/2/3/4 miles)?! That’s it?! The relative work-to-distance ratio is sorta silly.

on the other side of the field, before the other singletrack bit, before getting adjacent to the polo fields, smiling like a fool bc DAMN THIS IS HARD (PC: WRC)

In other words: this course is so, so fun, in the most (lovely yet) inane way possible. 

somewhere around mile 1.3 or so, adjacent to the polo fields, after the sand, before the woods… are you keeping track of all the various terrain?! (PC: WRC)

We fielded enough participants to have masters women/men’s and open women’s/men’s teams (hooray!), and everyone who raced also volunteered. Our course monitors were situated pretty frequently throughout the course, which meant runners always knew where we were going and that we all got those soul-affirming great job, you’re doing awesome, keep going supportive commentary throughout the entirety of the race, which matters. 

I’m 700+ words deep by now and have said nothing about my race, but the pictures above probably speak for themselves, to a degree. Right off the grassy field start line, both hamstrings felt extremely strained when we made the fast ascent from the grass to the path. It took a little bit of time (and some downhill) for the panicked feelings of ohshitohshitohshit to subside; my only explanation is that I wasn’t adequately warmed up. About a mile in, when we were in the first singletrack stretch before the gopher-pocked field, I rolled or began to roll my ankles no fewer than three times, before/after/during the sand portions, once hard enough that the women behind me audibly gasped and asked if I was ok. (I was, and thanks for looking out for me!) Throughout the race, I felt pretty strong but not very fast — again, that same place where I’ve been since May at MTB — and on my second lap, I surrendered two places and got back one. At the very end of the race, with about a quarter-mile to go, I tried to close the gap on the woman in front of me and flung myself into a dead sprint, grassy field finish line be damned. Ultimately, she beat me by two seconds, but my Garmin data details that the final 30 seconds of my race waded into sub-5 territory, with a low of 4:17, which is probably some sort of record for me in a race (let alone a XC race). That’s exciting. 

finishing strong, hence that weird grimace-smile thing (PC: WRC)

My time was ~1:40 slower than it was when I last ran this course in 2017, but it’s of little consequence to me simply because in ‘17, I was just a few weeks out from CIM and thus had a ton of concerted training under my belt. For the past few weeks, I’ve been sitting around 50 mpw but without any real workouts to speak of. I was happy that I could find a really high-for-me gear at the end of a tough race on Sunday, and I finished feeling like I had tried hard. So far this XC season, my goals at each race have simply been to have fun, work hard, and don’t give up/stay in it when it gets uncomfortable. Provided I do all of those, I walk away (tired but) gratified. That’s enough.

RD Andy de-briefing post-race (PC: WRC)

Following the women’s race were the masters men and open men’s races, and not too long after that came our team picnic. Hanging with my teammates — and meeting some of them for the first time — was such a lovely way to bookend the morning. The morning left me completely jazzed for the rest of the XC season and got me hyped about running the course again at Champs in November. (Here again is my usual open invite to one and all to come run any of the PA cross-country meets. Ask me any questions you have!). 

the obligatory silly shot (PC: WRC)

Congrats and THANK YOU to everyone who came out and raced and/or helped on Sunday; you helped make the day what it was.  xo

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.