Over the years, I’ve primarily raced local. From 5k’s to 50k’s and everything in-between, the furthest I’ve ever travelled is about an hour for a race. It saves me money, increases the likelihood that I will know other racers, and gives me a chance to test out courses ahead of time, especially if I’m really racing.
However, as I dig in to the trail running world, I’ve been faced with a challenge – a lot of the races I want to run are further outside my 1-hour race bubble. I ran a race recently that took me up to York, Pennsylvania, about 2 hours from my house in DC.
It was fantastic.
One of the key items on my race training schedule for this cycle is getting out and doing more hills. Living in the coastal plain, hills are sometimes hard to come by. I could easily run Rock Creek Park trails all day if I wanted to, and get some good elevation, but it’s so boring after a while. I run because I like the adventure, I don’t run just to repeat the same thing every day.
In order to find races, even short ones, with good elevation, I turned my attention to Pennsylvania. I’m early in my training cycle right now, and am being very careful not to overdue anything. I’m not running crazy distance, I’m not training crazy fast. I’m enjoying being out on the trails, taking my runs a day at a time, listening to my body, and being at peace knowing that I’m not injured right now.
With an early October 50k on the radar for this year, I figured running a mid-July 10 or 12 mile trail race would fit squarely in the realm of do-able. I’m up to 14 miles in weekly training runs and quickly ramping up distance (while slowing time) and feeling very strong.
Race Overview
I found the On the Rocks Trail Races in York, Pennsylvania, and immediately knew this was the perfect mid-cycle tune-up race I needed. With distances of 16.7k (10.3 miles), 33k and 50k, it was an accessible race for a wide variety of trail running enthusiasts and folks at different points in their yearly cycle. The race website gives this overview of the course:
Rocks, Little Rocks, Some Big Rocks, Some dirt with rocks, Rocks with dirt, gravel with rocks, rocks with little rocks, few tree roots, and some groomed to grassy trail sections. The course is challenging with 4 1/2 climbs that average approx. 250 vertical ft. each which make each loop about 1350 feet. The 16.7K is one awesome loop of trails and hills.
If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will.
A lesson I learned last year at the Patapsco 50k was that I need to do a bit more serious hill training leading up to the race. After mile 20 last year, my quads were burning. Part of that was me taking my training cycle VERY conservatively (having just come off a 7-month injury) but part of it was me avoiding hills because in my heart of hearts, I hate hills.
But I want to love hills. So I sign up for races that advertise their hills front a center.
Race Review
The race director stagger starts the distances starting at 7AM for the 50K, 8:30AM for the 33k and finally 10:30AM for the 16.7k. That meant my mid-summer race was starting at mid-morning. Heat, humidity and sunshine were in order. The time of the start worked out perfectly for me, since I had to drive 2 hours to get there.
I woke up at 6AM, ate some breakfast and drank some coffee, packed up the car and headed out the door by 7:30. I arrived at the park around 9:30, checked in, warmed up, and headed to the start line.
The start was very informal. Around 40 or so runners formed a mini mob, the race director got up on a step stool, talked a little about the course markings, and then we headed out.
The first section of the trail was downhill, with everyone bouncing over rocks and eroded trail sections. At the bottom of the hill, we turned and headed straight back uphill. This would be a continuing theme for the rest of the race.
The first hill was not that bad, and is probably the ‘1/2’ of the ‘4 and a ½ hills’ that are in the race description itself. I felt strong. My first mile clocked in at 10:30 or so, giving me some early motivation. At mile 1.5 I caught up to two women who I stayed near for the next mile or so.
We headed downhill on a steep section of trail that was, surprise, full of rocks. I love downhill running, but practice a conservative pace when navigating rocks and roots, to avoid faceplanting on an outcrop and disfiguring my face (am I the only one that thinks about the facial injury potential of downhill trail running?).
After the second downhill, we again headed straight back up from where we came. We were weaving in a zig zag manner, along the edges of the park. This uphill was much longer than the first, and I took some short walk breaks on the steepest sections. The heat started getting to me around mile 2.5, which was an early concern. I felt fatigued, hungry (probably because it was getting close to lunch and I had only just started running) and ready for the race to be over.
We came up to the powerline section, and the sun and heat were on full blast. There was an aid station here, but I opted to skip it entirely since we were so early in the race. I somehow got a second wind once back in the woods, and cruised steadily downhill. At one point on this downhill, the trail turned sharply but was hard to see. I had to stop and get my bearings to realize where I needed to go. So many rocks on the ground obscured the physical trail route, but thanks to some excellent course markings I was quickly on my way again.
At Hill #3, I was feeling good again, just a bit more tired. I passed a few runners here, including one guy who was struggling with the heat. I offered him some of my water and continued onwards. After a brief stop at a well-stocked and very friendly aid station (with ice cold water and lots of different Gatorade flavors!) I kept on moving.
The second half of the race was, in my opinion, much more enjoyable than the first half. My unscientific observation is, most of the elevation gain was packed in to the first 5 miles. After that, I was able to cruise on some nicely undulating terrain, with some climbs scattered in that were not nearly as taxing as the first 3. I really enjoyed the solitude of the second half, occasionally passing a fellow runner, chatting about whatever distance we were racing, and continuing onward. I spend a little time at Aid Station #4, giving the crew an update on the field of runners. They were curious how folks were doing with the heat, and if I knew if anyone was injured. I noted to runner I passed a while back that was struggling with the heat, and flagged that I saw a runner completely eat it on an uphill section, falling flat on his chest with all his body weight. He seemed fine and kept on running almost right away. But I wasn’t sure what the rest of the race had brought him, since that happened on the first hill.
At mile 9, my feet started being very attracted to gravity, which caused me to trip several times as I was running uphill. My graceful flailing arms kept me from landing on the ground, but because of those handful of fall scares, I decided the short distance remaining of the race I would just walk up the hills. No need to injure myself.
And finally, I saw the pavilion that marked the near end of the race. It was a bit hard to determine where to go once I made it to the pavilion. There were finishers inside cheering me on, and thankfully shouted ‘up the hill, to the right of the pavilion, and on to the finish!’, which I quickly thanked them for.
I crossed the finish line in 2:04, 3rd female and a solid 16-minutes faster than I was anticipating.
We received a finishers towel (an unexpected second swag gift!) and had a nice spread of pizza, sandwiches, watermelon, candies and water/Gatorade at the finish.
A Quick Discussion of Gender Representation in Trail Running
I haven’t ever touched on this subject in this blog, but a comment during the race got me thinking. At the second aid station, I chatted with the crew who were very friendly. They noted that not that many females were running the race that day and I was one of just a handful they had seen on course so far. I knew there was a good amount of women behind me, but wasn’t surprised when they made note of this observation.
I was curious about what the actual statistics were for this race, and found the following:
- For the 50K, 17% of the 46 finishers were women
- For the 33K, 38% of the 29 finishers were women
- For the 16.7K, 42% of the 55 finishers were women.
Since I was third overall for women in the 16.7K, I’m not surprised the aid station volunteers made this observation to me.
There has been a lot of ink spilled on female representation in the ultra-community, so I won’t go into it here. What I will say is, the 50K was significantly underrepresented by women in the On the Rocks race, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the more accessible 16.7K race was much closer to parity (though still under representative of women competitors).
I take pride in my passion and participation in the ultrarunning world. I find joy and excitement each time I lace up my trail shoes. And while I constantly undervalue and underappreciate my abilities, races like On the Rocks, and comments from my boyfriend Chris make me know that I am actually not that bad. Chris commented off-hand last week on our 20-mile bike ride that followed a 14-mile trail run I did, saying ‘you are such an athlete’ after asking how I feeling considering the time and distances I had done that day. It’s little things like that that keep me going, keep my confidence up, especially in what is an otherwise male dominated sport, where I feel a lot slower than the rest of the field (which as On the Rocks showed, isn’t reality)
Takeaway
For the relatively cheap registration fee of $35 or so bucks, I would say this race was awesome, well managed and very friendly. I will hopefully be back to run next year!