Today marked the final race of the fall NMTC Trail series, and it was held at the ski trails of Pine Valley in Cloquet. In a previous life I went around these trails a bunch of times on a couple of skinny pieces of finerglass. So I had a pretty good feel for the layout of the trails and the location and size of the hills. And yes, there were hills.
What Goes Up, Must Come Down...
The very first thing this trail does is go straight up a hill. Well after a short straight section of trail and a hard right turn. When Jarrow gave his quick command to go the whole crowd lurched forward and veered to the right and up the service road for a second or two before some loud yelling from a helper got everyone back on track.
After the first hill, there is a whole lot of the trail turning back on itself and some good rolling ups and downs. More than once you will be running and see people ahead/behind you through the trees on your left or right. The signs marking the kilometers are a nice touch on this trail so you have a good feel for how much running you have left until the finish.
One Last Uphill
What I always will remember about Pine Valley from high school skiing is the final steep downhill with the sweeping left turn at the bottom. Many skiiers did not look forward to this downhill as the tracks would be washed out very quickly and invariably a few folks would not quite make the corner and skid off into the snowbank on the right side of the trail. Skiing, this was my favorite part of the course. I really enjoyed the fast technical downhills as that was my strength (as opposed to being a strong or fit skiier...).
Running up this hill, and then down, was not nearly the same as it was on ski's. The uphill side of the hill was similar to skiing, however the down portion of the hill was harder on foot than on ski. It turns out you do not carry your momentum on foot very well when running down a steep hill.
Summary
All in all, I had a fun race. I was not very fast again today, but I felt good and had a faster time than last year. Taking a look at the season as a whole, I was generally pleased. I had some very good runs, and a few I felt I may have been able to do a little better. I am glad I got to run the power lines that I missed in previous seasons.
I am also ready for an off-season from racing. From now until next spring I will be simply running for fun, riding my bike on the trainer from time to time, and getting to the gym once in awhile to swim and lift a weight or two. Sometime in maybe February I will put together my plan of attack for next season. Currently I have the Garry Bjorklund half marathon on my schedule, I will figure out the rest soon enough.
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