McDonald Forest Trail 15k and 5k - Results and Race Review

Yes, I hauled my injured ribs over to McDonald Forest and ran the thing.

If you just need results, here they are.

As to the results, let me just say, I don't know how anyone could run this very hilly and tough course in a 5:54 pace, so nice job, Chris Reed. Mr. Reed also won this race the last time I ran it, in 2011, so he appears to know how to run hills.

And on to the review!

I had run the McDonald Forest Trail 15k once before, so I knew what to expect. Although a big change for this year's race was that Corvallis has just been completely dry pretty much right through October. So it would be a trail run, but it wouldn't be a muddy trail run. Which was probably good because of the sore ribs and all. So what happens about five minutes before the race starts? Yep, a light rain began to fall. Just enough to wet down all the fallen leaves and make it nice and slippery!

So at a reasonable hour of 10:00am, about 250 of us took off into the rain, and while the Mac 15 starts out first thing going uphill, it's only for a few hundred yards, then the course flattens out and is either flat or downhill for pretty much the first three miles. Which is strange because it allows you to go out pretty fast. And that's nice, but you have to be wary of leaving it all right there in the first three miles. Once the hills start in mile four, you need to have something in the tank.

So I went out very slowly and deliberately to test the ribs, but they felt pretty good. After about a half mile, I tried to turn it up a notch and finished the first mile in 8:30. The second mile has some of the best downhill running of the race. Downhill, but not so steep that you've got to brake yourself. I covered the second mile in 8:01.

Then the fun ends. The third mile isn't too bad, with 141 feet of climbing and 83 feet of descent, but it slowed me down to 9:16. And the fourth mile is a teaser. It's bad - 209 feet of climbing, but it's just trying to get you ready for mile five. Mile five goes up 541 feet! Yeah. So those two miles were 10:05 and 12:45 respectively. That fifth mile just eats up your legs. It hard to get back into a decent rhythm after that.



Mile six has quite a bit of climbing - 255 feet - but also quite a bit of downhill - 287 feet. I hit that one at 11:28, proving what I mentioned about mile five taking the starch out of you.

Finally, the downhills start. Mile seven heads down quite a bit and mile eight falls off a cliff, with 492 feet of downhill. It's hard on your feet, knees and ribs! If it were just a touch flatter, you could actually run this mile faster, but you've got to put on the brakes a bit so you don't face-plant. I hit mile seven in 9:20 and mile eight in 7:35.

Finally, mile nine and you think you're there...but no. They throw in a short uphill section in the last half mile just for fun. I was pretty much done at that point and did not exactly attack the hill. Mile nine was in 10:04. And that was it. My Garmin was way off, so I don't have anything for the last three tenths of a mile. My Garmin showed 8.95 miles when I hit the finish line.

And the shirt? Well, you had a choice between bright yellow and lime green. Hmmmmm..... That's not much of a choice. I went for the lime green. Yowza.



It's actually even brighter in real life. It should be good for night visibility...from space. I think the 5k had a white shirt.

And the emblem on the back of the shirt.



This is one of my favorite trail runs in the area. Tough, but not crazy hard. Long, but not stupid long. Late enough in the year for the chance of mud, but not usually freezing cold. It's a good one. I'll be back.

Last Hill Training Run Before McDonald Forest 15k

And did it go smoothly? No, no it did not.

It started out well enough. I stuck to my favorite hill this week while taking my last big hill training run before the McDonald Forest 15k. So I headed out the front door and ran to Bald Hill, which is only about 1.5 miles away from my home. My plan was to run up the front side of Bald Hill, down the back side, take a quick loop on the bike path, then take the same route but backwards on the way home.



And it was all good through the first half. I went up the hill, back down the back side and headed onto the paved bike path. Little tired going up the hill, but I was happy that my left knee, which had been hurting going downhill lately, was feeling good.

I headed back onto the dirt and gravel path past the old barn and toward the backside of Bald Hill. Even though I had sunglasses on, the late afternoon sun was right in my face and I was having trouble seeing in certain spots. Yeah, that's my excuse...

I never saw the tree root, but my foot found it easily enough. This was not a bumbling, stumbling, comedy fall. I went down like I got shot in the back. Unfortunately, my hands and knees barely got scratched up. Unfortunate because my chest and ribs took the brunt of the fall instead. Wow, that hurt.

But hey, it didn't hurt as bad then as it does today, the day after!

So I shuffled home, holding my side most of the way. And started to hit the Advil hard.

Today, I'm hurting. Deep breathing is not fun. Sudden movements are not fun. Today's planned run has been scratched. I'm just hoping I start feeling better soon. The Mac Forest 15k was going to be the first run Jen and I ran together for years! I don't want to be on the sidelines!

Updates soon.

Another Day of Hill Training for the McDonald Forest Trail 15k

Taking advantage of another decent October weekend with good weather, we hit the McDonald Forest trails for more hill work. Little bit of a shorter run this week, only 6.5 miles, but got all the elevation I needed in there. Had an easier time navigating the trails this week after stumbling around a bit last week. Not a bunch of dead ends and turn arounds this time, just followed the Upper Dan's Trail to the top of Dimple Hill, then took a quick loop around Lower Dan's Trail at the end just to get the dog some water. Check out the profile:



Nice view of Corvallis from the top of Dimple Hill. Only a couple weeks now until the race. Time to get after it!

More Hill Work on the Trails

Still getting ready for the McDonald Forest Trail 15k. And the wife and I found a new route into McDonald Forest. If you're a Corvallisite (Corvallisian?), just head north on 29th until you run out of road and then park. Pow, there's the Forest.

As you can see from the map above, I wasn't too familiar with the trails in that section, so I've got a few dead ends where I turned around and headed back the way I had just been. I also spent a little bit longer standing and looking at trail signs than I usually do, but it was all good.

Had some good ups and downs for race prep.



Ran into a little bit of mud, but not bad really. And the sun was out and the day was gorgeous, so it was nice to be able to enjoy that at least one more time before the rains really come.

See you on the 27th.

Sort-of Hill Work Prep for McDonald Forest 15k - Week Three

Still prepping for the McDonald Forest Trail 15k on October 27th. The plan is to do a good, hilly trail workout every weekend until we hit the race date.

Unfortunately, the huge storm that Washington and Oregon have been fighting through made that difficult for me today. Basically, there are no trails right now. There are barely roads. We've had a lot of rain over the past few days. A LOT of rain. Read all about it here.

So that meant I was on the roads today instead of the trails. And man, was it ugly. Driving rain, 20-30 mph winds, massive puddles every 10 feet. I was one drowned rat by the end of this one.

Still, the run was pretty good. Definitely not hilly enough.



I wanted to get it slightly over the 15k distance and I was fine there, measuring in at 10 miles exactly. My pace was even pretty good, after I got warmed up a bit in the first mile or so.



And miles three and four were during the only decent hill of the day, so I'm pretty happy that I kept a nice pace through that section.



We're supposed to dry out a bit by the middle of the week, which would be very nice so I can get back on the trails next weekend.

So you out there.

Northwest Running and Triathlon Calendar - October 2013 - Halloween Races!

Hey, one of the best events in Corvallis is coming up: McDonald Forest Trail Run. This is my next race and it should be yours too. It's a great course and a fun race. Check out my race review of the 2011 race right here.

Another great choice for the week would be the ORRC Autumn Leaves Ultra 50m and 50k. Why? Well, they have perhaps the greatest swag in trail racing history: one person will have THEIR VERY OWN HONEY BUCKET ON THE COURSE!!

Yes, you heard me correctly. If you sign up early for this race, you have a chance to win your very own portable rest room on the side of the course...that no one else can use but you! Man, it's like Christmas and your birthday all wrapped up in one!

Let's race!

-Green Text for Trail Runs
-Red Text for Marathons and Half Marathons
-Blue Text for Triathlons and Duathlons
-Orange Text for everything else, the normal 5k, 10k, etc

RACES FOR WEEK OF OCTOBER 21st to OCTOBER 27th

October 26th / Halloween at Hells Gate Trail Half Marathon / Lewiston, ID

October 26th / ORRC Autumn Leaves Ultra 50m and 50k / Champoeg Park, OR

October 26th / Trail of Terror Trail Run Half Marathon and 5k / Athol, ID

October 26th / Dawn of the Dead Dash 5k / Portland, OR

October 26th / A Very Poplar Run 10k and 5k / Boardman, OR

October 26th / Red Lizard Stumptown Cross Country Race 8k and 5k / Portland, OR

October 26th / Pumpkin Trail 5m / North Bonneville, WA

October 26th / Pumpkin Run XC 6k / Leavenworth, WA

October 27th / Lutherwood, Wouldn't You? Trail Run 10k and 5k / Bellingham, WA

October 27th / McDonald Forest Trail Run 15k and 5k / Corvallis, OR

October 27th / Spooky Trail Run 12k / Port Gamble, WA

October 27th / Cougar Mtn Trail Run 50k and 20m / Bellevue, WA

October 27th / Run Wild Whatcom 10k / Bellingham, WA

October 26th / Grants Pass Half Marathon, 10k and 5k / Grants Pass, OR

October 26th / Rush Creek Stampede Half Marathon and 5k / Cambridge, ID

October 27th / Tri-Cities Marathon / Richland, WA

October 27th / Columbia Gorge Marathon and Half Marathon / Hood River, OR

October 27th / Snohomish River Run Half Marathon and 10k / Snohomish, WA

October 26th / Issaquah Highlands Green Halloween 5k / Issaquah, WA

October 26th / Halloweenathon 15k, 10k and 5k / Aloha, OR

October 26th / Monster Dash Run for Education 10k and 5k / Ashland, OR

October 26th / North Plains Pumpkin Run 10k / North Plains, OR

October 26th / Fall Classic Fun Run 5k / Monroe, WA

October 26th / Halloween Run 5k / Boise, ID

October 26th / Magnuson Series Halloween Run 15k, 10k and 5k / Seattle, WA

October 26th / Pumpkin Push 5k / Seattle, WA

October 26th / Freaky Zombie Run 5k / Federal Way, WA

October 26th / Haunted Hoquiam 10k and 5k / Hoquiam, WA

October 26th / Run the Logger 5k / Tacoma, WA

October 26th / Monster Dash 4m / Bellingham, WA

October 26th / Pumpkin Pacer 5k / Deer Park, WA

October 26th / Monster Mash Dash 10k and 5k / Nampa, ID

October 26th / Run for Project PINK 5k / Kirkland, WA

October 26th / Skagit Valley Zombie 5k / La Conner, WA

October 26th / The Farm Man Challenge 5k / Meridian, ID

October 26th / West Seattle Monster Dash 5k / Seattle, WA

October 27th / Woodland Park Zoo Pumpkin Dash 5k / Seattle, WA

October 27th / Monster Mash 5k / Eugene, OR

October 27th / Monster Dash 5k / Spokane, WA

October 27th / Run Scared 5k / Seattle, WA

October 27th / Monster Dash 5k / Bend, OR

McDonald Forest Trail 15k Prep

The next race on the schedule is the McDonald Forest Trail 15k, so I've spent the last two weekends trying to hit the hills a bit. Yesterday's workout is above. I ran basically the exact distance, a 15k, and nearly the exact elevation gain that we'll be running on October 27th, so it was a good workout. I pretty much had done no hill training while I was training for the Skagit Flats Marathon, so it's been quite a while since I struggled up big hills like this. The downhills are proving to be the biggest issue so far though. My left knee has not been real happy with the sudden pounding I've been inflicting on it. Hopefully, it will come around as I spend a little more of the Autumn on the trails.

See you out there.

Skagit Flats Marathon Review and Results

Let's start it off right. Those six fine folks above all qualified for the Boston Marathon at the Skagit Flats Marathon on Sunday. So it was possible! Check them out on the Skagit Flats Facebook page here - nice photo by Ashley Degen.

If you're just looking for results of the race:
-here are the marathon results.
-and here are the half marathon results.

Also, if you're looking for photos from the race, the link at the Skagit Flats Marathon page is incorrect. Here is the correct Jon Brunk link. It doesn't look like the photos are up yet, but I did see at least one guy out there taking shots, so I assume they'll be up soon.

Now to the gory details...

My Skagit Flats Marathon Experience!

Due to some bad luck and timing issues with family and work, I headed up to the race on Saturday. It was about a six hour drive and I was on my own. Not a great way to prep for a marathon, but you do what you have to do. I picked up my number, chip and shirt at about five, had some dinner and then headed back to Seattle to stay the night at my brother's place.

Woke up early Sunday morning and headed back up to Burlington. The weather looked just about perfect: fog and/or low clouds seemed to be the order of the day.



Of course, with that kind of weather, you also usually get some high humidity. My Garmin said it was right at 100%. So, yeah, that's pretty high. It felt good standing around, but once we got going, the sweat came out pretty fast.



I went to hit the Honey Buckets about 30 minutes before the start, then remembered that they were going to open up the high school locker rooms for showers after...might they be open before for bathroom use? Yes, they were! So I walked in to the locker room and just off the entrance door, there was the toilet. No, I mean it was right there. It had a wall around it...about 3 feet tall. And there was a guy sitting on it. I sort of nodded at him...I'm not sure what the correct greeting was for saying "hello" to a guy on a wide-open toilet in the middle of a locker room, but I really didn't want to get into a full-blown conversation. Then I quickly decided that I was going to have to put up with the Honey Bucket after all. Anyhoo...

So the Full and the Half started off at the same time, which wasn't a big deal as there were only about 700-800 runners total, so it wasn't crowded at all. We took off right beside Burlington-Edison High School and meandered north and west toward Padilla Bay on the lonely farm roads that run around the town.



A couple of notes about the course. As the name of the race suggests, this is a flat course. It doesn't go up much and it doesn't go down much. It's just flat. And frankly a little boring. This is farm country and you're pretty much stuck looking at fields and cows and dirt and road. Once in a while, at the few road intersections, where people could find parking, you would have a few people cheering on the side of the road. But if you're looking for crowds and/or interesting sights alongside the course...nope, this isn't it. This is where to come if you want to try to run fast on a flat course. Period.

Here's the elevation profile from my Garmin:



Because of a strained and sore quad muscle in my right leg, I hadn't really run in about a week before the race. It felt OK during warmup and really, during the first 10 miles of the race, it felt pretty much fine. So that was not an issue. Well...the not running may have been an issue, but the muscle was fine.

I fell in with the 3:45 pace group, thinking I could hold that pace. Maybe a mistake, but I had done the first three months of my training program working on a 7:50 pace, so I didn't think an 8:30 pace would be a killer. I was wrong. I only made it about 8 miles before my pace started to fall off. At first I thought I was just sort of tired and would come back around with a second wind, as I sometimes do in training runs. Instead, between miles 8 and 12, my legs tightened up horribly and I slowed and slowed. I tried slowing the pace, stretching a bit, and finally walking breaks, but by mile 16, I was getting cramps in my quads and in my calves. I was even getting cramping in my toes! By mile 18, my legs felt like boards and I was having a lot of trouble running at all. Of course, that's about the time that the fog and clouds lifted and all of the sudden it was HOT and I was looking at trying to finish the last eight miles without being able to do much more than walk and shuffle/jog once in a while.

Check the mile by mile carnage here:



Why the cramping? At first I wanted to blame the humidity, but I was taking in water and sport drink pretty well and I had four GU gels during the race. Besides, newer research says that heat and humidity are not usually to blame for cramps. The more likely reason: my last month of poor training (vacation time plus injury time) left me undertrained to even go out at an 8:30 pace. I really didn't think I'd lose that much fitness that fast, but it's the most likely cause.

If you want to see what it looks like to walk a good part of a marathon, here you go:



So I struggled, STRUGGLED, in to the finish line with a 5:04:13. My slowest marathon ever. Wow.

The worst part, for me, is not the bad experience or the bad result - it's just one more race, after all, there will be plenty of others - but the fact that I wasted four months trying to gauge the effectiveness of the Hansons Marathon Method and pretty much didn't learn anything about it. So does the Hansons Marathon Method work for the Average Joe? Will it get you to Boston? Probably, I don't know, maybe. And I'd love to be able to say, "let's try it again!" But that just isn't going to happen anytime soon. I'm thinking I'll concentrate on some shorter races for a while and have a little fun before heading back to the marathon.

The shirt is nice, you don't see a lot of green shirts except for St. Patrick's Day races, so that's cool. The fit is a little small and the neck hole is tiny, but I've said many times before, the sizing on different brands of tech shirts are an absolute mystery. You get what you get. This one may end up with Payton as I'm not sure I'm fitting into it.



Decent medal. Nothing too exciting, but it fits the race. And I'm not saying that in a bad way. I think this is the perfect marathon for one thing: running fast. It's small, it's low-key, it's flat, and judging from the results, most people had a pretty decent race here. Unfortunately, not all of us, but I may return at some point to try to fix that.



So that's that. We're just not going to think about Boston for a while. Not going to think about marathons for a while. I think I'll let the desire come back on its own well and good time. For now, I'll just concentrate on the shorter races that are in front of me. Moving on!

Next up: McDonald Forest Trail 15k on October 27th.

McDonald Forest 15k Trail Run Review!

So after missing out on running the Corvallis 5k earlier in the morning, I had to quickly clear my head, and my irritation, and get ready to run a tough trail 15k at the McDonald Forest Trail Run.

We arrived at McDonald Forest with the rain coming down pretty good and the promise of mud awaiting us on the course. Which was fine by me. Really, I haven't had a muddy race all year and with only this race and one more to the end of EPIC 2011, I was sort of hoping for a little mud!

This race was looking like it would start right on time, so a quick trip to the Honey Bucket, then I lined up in the starting chute.

And POW! Off we went. The 5k runners quickly went left, around the lake, and the 15k runners went right, around the other side of the lake, and that was the last I saw of the 5k folks. The first two or three miles of this one is pretty nice. Mostly flat or downhill, with nothing too steep up or down. But as soon as you hit that three mile mark...OOF. This race goes up.

This is an interesting course in that there are a couple spots where you can see the runners ahead of you, but then you take a quick turn and don't end up back where you just saw the other runners for a number of minutes. Tease!

At one point, just past four miles, and going up a nasty hill, my Garmin told me that it lost satellite reception. That's the first time its ever done that to me. It was very cloudy and raining, and we were deep in the middle of McDonald Forest, but it's still annoying to know that your trusty Garmin isn't keeping track of where you're going any more! And if you look at the pace chart above, you can see where it loses it - right where my pace goes to a spiffy one minute per mile pace!

Eventually the Garmin came back online and we were finally nearing the top of the brutal, never ending climb. And then came the part that feels so good the day of...and so bad the next day. The screaming steep downhill section. It's all you can do to keep up with your feet through miles six and seven. You're just flying through the woods! And strangely, even though it was still raining, there were very few patches of mud. The course was actually pretty solid.

So after one last uphill at the nine-mile mark, we were back to the lake and then downhill to the finish. Yes!

I crossed the line with a 1:24:21 time. Not stellar, but hey, that's one steep course. Over 2900 feet of elevation gain, according to my Garmin. I finished dead on in 100th place. Woot! Check the results here.

You might notice that World Champion Mountain runner Max King finished in second place. What?! I know, right? One Chris Reed beat him to the finish line, in an upset for the ages. But as you can read here, young Mr. Reed does in fact know how to run. Still, that's quite an upset. Congrats to Chris!

Also, note the winner of the 5k: Case Regan, a 7th grader from the cross country squad at Linus Pauling. Go LP!

And of course, we've got the always cool McDonald Forest 15k shirt. This year, it was a quality tech tee in a sweet purple color!

And the back, as usual, shows the pain!

Well, as far as I can tell, the EPIC 2011 train has but one race left. Oh noes! And that would be the OAC Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving morning. Be there!