2018 Golden Gate Park XC Open (San Francisco, CA) – race report
As was the case last fall, I’m training to race CIM in December, and Coach Lisa and I have decided to throw some cross country (XC) action into the training mix where/when it makes sense. It is fall, after all, so it’s high time for some PA XC action!
Last year, I ran the Santa Cruz race, this GGP open, and the championship race at GGP in November. So far, this time around, I’ve run Santa Cruz (feeling not 100% recovered at all from TSFM, nearly a month+ later) and the GGP open again and hope to do some more between now and December.
Sorta like the 2017 v 2018 SC race, the 2018 GGP open was a pretty similar experience and set-up compared to last year. The biggest difference — maybe the only difference — that I could recall was that in this year’s race, once you entered the woods off the polo fields, runners could participate in a “choose your own adventure” of sorts as they determined their paths: over a short and steep root-strewn single-track-ish hill or over one longer and more gradual. (I chose the steep option because I’m a fool who apparently likes to make things needlessly more challenging). That, and the fact that the grass was dry on the back end of the course (circa mile 2.1, 2.2 and change) struck me as the only differences from last year’s course to this year’s.
Part of the reason I really enjoyed this course last year — and what I think makes it super fun to race on and also super challenging — is that runners encounter a ton of different terrain in a really short distance. This year’s race was just shy of a 6k, I guess, and in that abbreviated distance, we covered the flatlands of the polo fields, loose dirt and gravel, singletrack, woods, a little bit of pavement, grass, mud, and surely more that I can’t recall. It’s like a constant exercise in switching gears and determining when to push and when to hold back, all while chasing those around you and trying to not get passed. It’s so freaking fun!
We fielded two great full teams this year for our men’s and women’s races, and it just made for a lovely morning. Another big difference for me between this year’s race and that of last year is that this time around, I never looked at my watch to see my pace. Before the race, I was going to look up my 2017 time to have it “for reference purposes” going in, and somewhere along the drive to SF, I decided I just didn’t care. Instead of going off the feedback I was getting from my watch, I wanted to approach this more … intuitively, I guess … and let my bodily feedback (and my experience on this course from last year) dictate my approach.
I was just in it for a) the opportunity to help us field a full team and b) the opportunity to have a hard effort. Time was sorta irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
The short version is that I think this different approach paid off. From start to finish of the race, I felt strong and in control, which is more or less in direct opposition to how I felt during this year’s Santa Cruz XC challenge just a few weeks before. There, I began feeling ok (not great) and then deteriorated … and then deteriorated some more … and then began questioning my life’s choices and wondering how in righteous hell I had raced a marathon four weeks prior.
I’m happy to say that at this’s year GGP open, I felt strong from the get-go, tried to trust in my pacing and in how I was responding to the terrain, and finished feeling appropriately gassed but without feeling like I was knocking on death’s door. I recalled from the ’17 race that I had come out of the gates too hard and just compleeeeeeeeeeeetely tanked like a fool.
This time around, absolutely my pace slowed from start to finish — as I think most everyone’s did — but I had enough left at the end to finish on the polo fields at a sub-mile pace (5:18!) for at least a few strides to try to chase down other women ahead of me. I didn’t know it until Lisa mentioned it to me later, but I notched a PR for the course on Sunday too, which was unexpected and very cool. Maybe there is something to running “blind,” so to speak.
A huge bonus to the day’s festivities, too, was that Angela decided to run her first XC race in forever, so I was just tickled to see her on race morning and to share the experience with her. I think I may have introduced her to every person I knew (sorry!), and post-race, she, Janet, Ida, and I ran a long cool-down and yapped the entire time. It was awesome. And of course, it was lovely to see Robin that morning and to finally meet Sarah. The running world is so small sometimes, and I just love it. I should have taken pictures to document all of this, but alas. My bad.
The nice thing about all this PA XC action is that it’s open to anyone, regardless of your pace, age, team affiliation (or lack thereof), or whatever. It’s hard to describe, but it really is so much fun to try to run as hard and fast as you can over/through random shit, for lack of a better word. It’s definitely not road racing, and it’s not trail racing, but it’s a sweet marriage of the two.
This is all to say that local friends, if you are itching to get a little XC action this fall but don’t know where to start, let’s talk! I’d love to see you on a starting line soon and would be *more* than happy to chat with you.
I can’t help but think that testing yourself in this gritty XC way lends itself quite readily to developing grittiness from which you can draw in other racing environs. I’ll lyk. I’m excited to find out.
