2020 has been a weird year, and honestly this race wasn’t even on my radar despite being in my backyard. The lack of racing this year has interestingly somehow turned into more of a run focus year, and I’ve really enjoyed that. When my work schedule worked out to have race day off, and I was able to finagle a bib in the already sold out race, I decided that despite the tough course it was meant to be. I definitely had the base and fitness to have a strong race, and potentially to get my goal of sub-1:35 (previous PR 1:40), however this course featured nearly 1000k feet of elevation change with my previous PR on VERY flat ground.
I was feeling very confident about my training, fitness and build leading into the race. Having a big run year and keeping relatively high mileage played in my favor as there wasn’t much extra I had to add. I had two key workouts prior to the race that I think really set me up well- one being a 9 mile tempo run at my favorite (sarcasm) hilly park with my coach Erin and a friend Ashley, both of whom are faster than me. They paced me to 2x2mile tempo at about 710 pace, which was a huge confidence booster as this almost felt easy. The second solid workout was a long run I did solo at our friend’s lake house in Tennessee, which was about 12 miles with >1500 ft of elevation gain, I didn’t realize it at the time but this run was the perfect prep for the race with punchy hills. I was also able to run these hills about 2 minutes faster a mile than even just last year when I did the same run, really a statement to how far my fitness and training had come.
My priority the week of the race was really to respect the taper. This is one of the hardest things for me to do and is a constant battle. I’ve had enough experiences where I do a terrible job and then don’t race to my potential, so I really tried my best to ensure a good race. Luckily I was working all week which made things a lot easier.
It’s probably usual to feel worse during taper week. That has usually been my experience. I’ve had some intermittent issues the past few months of hamstring tightness, and of course this decided to feel worse race week. I only had a few runs the week of the race, and my run Tuesday was one of the worst runs I’ve had in a long time. Some backstory may be useful here. I have asthma. It’s usually pretty well controlled and it’s usually not a big problem, but when the season changes and it starts to get cold, I ALWAYS have problems. The last week and half or so in Kentucky have really started to see the season changes and cool mornings, and I think coupled with a very high pollen count it is not all the surprising I struggled with some respiratory issues. Tuesday morning I had been at the pool with some breathing issues, nothing too unusual as sometimes that happens, but things continued to get worse throughout the day. I had an easy run on my schedule and headed to the park after working. Things did not go well. It’s the first time in a while I can remember having to stop and walk because I literally could not breathe. Somehow I finished the workout, but with many walk breaks and very short of breath. Luckily I was fine after getting home and getting in some steroids and albuterol but I was definitely freaked out. All I could do was move on and take it easy in prep for the race.
The rest of the week things calmed down a bit in terms of my respiratory issues and my hamstring was feeling ok. Packet pickup was madness on Friday and I was very surprised at how many people were running this race. I went to bed early Friday feeling good, a little nervous at the predicted temperatures near 40 (cold for me) and the pace I had to run to get a PR- but hey, it was either ready or not- race time.
Saturday morning was a very dark and chilly drive to the beautiful Kentucky Castle. I was early, but had plenty of time to warmup in the dark with my teammate Austin, who was targeting a 1:30 half. A lot of nervous energy filled the pre-race scene before we all headed down
to the wave-starting line. I was in the 4th wave to start, and so I held back by my car and hung on to the last of heat prior to ditching my warm clothes. I jogged my way down to the starting chute, pleasantly surprised to be allowed to start a couple minutes early. I started my playlist on my headphones- the one I had loaded up with exactly an hour and thirty-five minutes worth of music (no pressure), and I was off!
I had driven the course prior to the race, but I had definitely underestimated the hills doing this. I took off strong and felt good, I was definitely chilly but moving down the hills. I was flying past people on the narrow roads, and the first couple miles felt good- in retrospect I think they were mostly downhill. The views were stunning, running past horse fields and fog lifting off the grass, we even watched the sun come up through the fields and warm up the day somewhat. The tree line roads were just changing to some fall colors, luckily these roads were also completely closed to traffic which made for an enjoyable safe race experience.
The first half of the race I felt good. The hills felt easy, and I was shocked at the mile splits- some sub 7 minutes, most around 7 minutes. I wasn’t looking at my watch aside from the mile splits, but I knew by the 10km mark I had hit a PR in that distance. After the race I noted this was pretty significant and a 3 min 10km PR (43 min), and I was definitely cruising. I was happy to have music as almost all of this race I ran solo. I was running through groups and passing people the whole time, but there was never more than a few seconds running with company.
The back half of this race was painful. Driving the course I had thought that the worst of the hills were in the first half. Not the case. This may be a factor related in part to being fatigued, and the cumulative hills, but from mile 8 on I felt the hills were relentless. I tried to focus on keeping things a mile at a time, otherwise I’m not sure I would have survived. Luckily my splits were hanging on and even despite the pain I was feeling on the uphills.
Mile 11 I started having a few cramps in my calves- not an uncommon occurrence for me when I do hard running, and I was just praying I could hold on for the last two miles. The last mile of this race— oh man— driving did not do it justice. It was COMPLETELY UPHILL. I guess that first mile was mostly downhill after all lol. My legs- all of them- were dying as I was digging into the last mile. I knew I was close, I hadn’t looked at the total time on my watch but I knew based on my mile splits I was close. The switchbacks of the last mile felt never-ending but I finally saw the turn into the UPHILL finish into the castle. The last song queued up in my playlist. It was go-time to get this done.
I raced up the hill and could see the real time (9:15? I think) and could see Austin yelling at me as I sprinted across the line. I still didn’t know my actual race time until I crossed the line and stopped my watch. I was shocked. 1:34:21. I had done it. Sub-1:35, 6 min PR, one crazy course.
I was both very happy and very sore walking to get my medal and find my other running group friends. Everyone had had a strong race in our group with Austin hitting his 1:30 goal, my running friends Shannon and Jonathon both placing overall (1st female/2nd male), and me realizing I had placed second overall female right behind Shannon. It was cold and the race had no awards, so we all left fairly quickly after finishing.
It was not until after that the real accomplishments of the race have sunk in. I ended up placing 2nd out of 453 women with a gun time of 1:34:18 (7:12 pace). I PR’ed by almost 6 minutes on a course with nearly 1000ft of elevation gain. I was a fun day and I truly am proud of my preparation and execution, and am excited to see what comes of running in the future. I definitely have a lot of people to thank between my wonderful coach and friend, Erin and wonderfully strong running community in Lexington that continues to push me. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to race Run the Bluegrass, and without covid that may not have happened, so maybe there are some silver linings after all.
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