The evil elevation chart from the route

Today was the “Pie High” Lord Hill 10k run from Northwest Trail Runs and I really wasn’t sure I was going to be up for it.  First off, this was going to be the longest distance I’ve run yet this year, I did one other 10k up Tiger 3 a few months ago but haven’t gone past 5 easy miles other than that.  Second, I ended up riding a  lot longer to and from the NW Roots Festival yesterday and had a sore knee by the time I got home.  Third, I just knew Lord Hill was going to be a mother from having done a previous 10k and half marathon there.

Yet, I got up and made it to the park in time to finish set-up for registration and run registration for an hour before the event got going.   I switched into my tights, took off my rain jacket and put on my Altra Superiors for the run, I decided against the Lunas given the steepness and rockiness of some spots on the trails there.

The course had changed so started straight up the hill on the main road where it used to end.  The start was a mad dash uphill to become the king and queen of the hill.  I ran a bit and then had to just stop and walk, it was too much.  We came to the top of that hill and had just a bit of flat, enough to where the legs started to feel like they could run again when we hit the real hill.   For the next bit the trail was a single track straight up a hillside that was above a 45 degree slope for 300-400′.  No one was running that stretch, it was all walking, almost crawling at times.  I wish I’d taken out my camera to get a shot of everyone struggling up this thing.  All that in the first mile of the course, all uphill and about 550′ of tough gain.

The course then did some ups and downs for about 1.25 miles which felt good before starting another climb though at least this one was reasonable and only climbed about 300′ in 1 mile.  The good news is that from then on it was all downhill.   On that second uphill I passed quite a few runners and ended up with just one guy in back of me and no one to be seen in front of us from the 10k split off onward.  Coming down the hills I figured we were mid-pack with a bunch of people way ahead of us.   The descent was steep in places and I actually had to slow down for them since my knee was a bit funky from yesterday.   When we dropped down to the road to the finish I could tell there were not that many people at the finish area and I pushed the last 1/4 mile to stay ahead of the guy in back of me, crossing the finish in 1:00:31.

Turned out this was enough for a 2nd place finish at the event.  This is  my first “podium” finish ever at one of these events.  Of course this was the Pie High run so I won a pie for my efforts and pie is definitely a thing of my past unless I make an AIP friendly one at home.

I got home and checked my stats, this is the fastest 10k I’ve ever run on trail, not that I’ve run that many and several have been at Lord Hill but I even beat my Soaring Eagle time which is a much, much flatter course.   Amazingly this year so far I’ve clocked my fastest 5k time, 5 mile time and now 10k time.   I killed it on the other events, I dropped my best 5k time to 26:59 and it previously was 30:06 and my 5-mile time is now 37:44 whereas before it was 42:05.   I beat my 10k time by a minute but beat my best previous Lord Hill time by 5 minutes.

I can only chalk this up to dropping 30 lbs. thanks to SIBO and my AIP diet which is pretty impossible to gain weight on.   Since I live on fat I can go and go and go and not crash at all these days, it is crazy.   I’m not even really training much for these, I run 1-2 days a week, usually a very casual Saturday run with Uphill Running and maybe another day on my own for 3-4 miles up Tiger.   I am getting in a lot of backpacking and some cycling which I think is what is really keeping me in shape.  This whole month I only ran 20 miles but biked 36 and backpacked 38.   June was similar with only 18 miles of running, 20 miles of cycling and about 40 miles of backpacking.

I’m going to try for a Half Marathon in August at the Redmond Watershed, we’ll see if I can keep beating my times.  My best Half is at the Watershed with a 1:54:40 time so I’ll have to be moving to beat that.   I’m not sure I’ll go beyond a Half or 25k distance at all at this point but I’m willing to keep going and see how I feel.   I guess I should have signed up for Deception Pass 25k just to see but it sold out pretty much immediately so that one is out of the question so may have to wait for Sun Mountain in the spring, I’m not crazy enough for Orcas.