Kicking Woodstock’s Ass

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"
— Hunter S. Thompson
For the second week in a row, Angela and I have challenged our minds and bodies in competition. This last weekend was Run Woodstock, a three day festival of classic rock and tough trail running in the aptly named Hell, Michigan. The brainchild of a local running guru. the event included camping (which we hope to do next year), 5 different bands, and runs of all distances including a 100 miler, a 50 miler, a marathon, half marathon, and a 5 five miler. Angela and I feel the need for speed, so the 5 miler was the one for us.

There were about 142 competitors in our race. The trail was one hill after another. Narrow. Twisty. Muddy. Filled with roots. Plenty of people ate dirt as they stumbled their way through.
Angela and I prefer trail races. We like the idea of being in nature. Running on dirt is easier on your body. The distance seems to fly by. And then, there’s the mental aspect. We both love hills. We live in a hilly area and we finish just about every run going up a pretty big one.
Trail races psych a lot of people out. Sometimes they take hills too hard and kill their legs. Other times, they’re too intimidated (or tired from the last hill, or haven’t trained enough) and pretty quickly, end up walking. Running downhill, they put on the brakes, afraid to take a tumble. They worry about getting lost, don’t pay attention to the signs, and end up running the wrong course. All this works to our advantage.
A trail race is as much a mental challenge as a physical one. Both of us noticed the negative self-talk of other athletes at as we were corralled for the start. They line us up by our expected pace and many people started with the exclamations about how slowly they were going to run or how poorly they were going to do on these trails. We’ve learned to ignore it. Plus, we train hard and frequently, so we have the edge of feeling prepared.
My race strategy this year has been to go out with the leaders, hang with them as long as I can, and then run the hardest I can run given my heart rate. That strategy has worked pretty well for me. I have placed in my age group in every trail race I have run this year doing this.
This was Angela’s first pure running race in a couple of years and her strategy was to do her best and not get stuck behind the people who were selling themselves short, not pushing themselves, but taking up space.
Angela has not always thought herself a good runner, but I have been watching her times, especially when we do our “speed” workouts, and observed that she is capable of running faster than she thinks. This has shown itself in her strong running performances in the triathlons she’s run this year. With those observations in hand, I expected she’d do pretty well in her age group.
My race felt pretty good. I went out with the leaders, as planned, held off someone who ran practically at my heels for a few miles, and finished strong. I ended up finishing 6^th overall and winning my age group and am quite proud of that.
What made me proudest, was how Angela did. She won her age group too, finishing 39th overall.
For our hard work, we got the best race prizes ever:

To be honest, I usually don’t care about the prize or placement, but in just doing my best, but when I saw what was at stake, I got a little more competitive than usual. I suspect that the same thing happened to Angela.  Anyhow, it was a great way to finish the day!

A trial and a triathlon

Just wrapped up another busy weekend doing two of our favorite things for the last time outside for the season: agility and triathlon.

On Saturday, Django and Maebe and we had our first USDAA Agility trial, hosted by AWSOMM Agility.

The competition and the scheduling (having to juggle two different rings) was kind of intense and Maebe had to jump a huge height given how small she is. Django was signed up for 2 runs, Maebe, 7. Django had a nice Standard run. Wasn’t clean, but he and Angela and fun out there. Maebe and I were pitted against some of the best handlers in the nation for a few of our runs. We had fun and I was pleased with the majority of the handling, but we had a lot of knocked bars given this was the first time Maebe had to jump 22 inches in a trial (she normally jumps 16). About halfway through the day, we were all exhausted and decided to pack it in so that we could give the dogs a rest and focus on preparing for Sunday’s triathlon, the last of the season. We learned some lessons about how to pace ourselves in future trials (don’t sign up for everything), and only sign up for events in one ring so you don’t have to risk trying to memorize two courses simultaneously. Our “coach” was there and so we got great feedback as we ran. Many of our agility friends were in attendance, which was nice too.

Sunday morning, we headed out bright and early for the MI Triathlon & Duathlon State Championship at Stony Creek Metropark.

We were entered in the sprint, which involved a 500m swim, 20k bike, and 5k run. As an added treat, Angela’s father was there to cheer us on. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful venue, although the roads in the park were under construction, so we had to bike through an area open to traffic. Angela placed 4^th in her age group and I placed 8^th. We both ran our fastest run paces of the season.

We had a good time but were happy to be headed home afterwards to let the dogs blow off   some steam in the yard.

We weren’t home long before we crashed. A lovely end to a nice weekend.

Camp to ourselves

Over the weekend, the gang hooked up the trailer and headed north to Dog Scout Camp for a private outing, just us and the dogs.

After spending some time catching up with the property manager and the camp director, we went hiking,

 

running,

played in the play yard, practiced agility, took the horses out on the adjacent State land,

and Cadence went swimming. Just swam to the middle of the pond and splashed. And swam. And splashed.

We grilled some. We had a campfire on night.  Went out to dinner the next. 

It was very relaxing…

Despite the miles of hiking, running, horseback riding, and hours playing with dogs. Yeah, we  don’t really do downtime very well. Great weekend, though!