Ski Run Road Challenge Report

The wife and I headed down to Roswell on Friday morning. Hung out with the in-laws for a little bit and then hit up an Italian restaurant to load up on some pasta for the race on Saturday. I had some green chile alfredo which I will be attempting to duplicate in the kitchen at some point. Nice spicy kick on a traditional Italian dish. I was pretty beat from the drive down and I think I finally got to bed around 9:30.

Alarm went off at 5:00am and I got up quickly to throw on some clothes, grab a bite, and do the pre-race duties. We were out of the house about 10 til 6 with an hour plus drive to get to the start line in Ruidoso. Pretty drive to the town once you get into Lincoln county. Since this was a point to point race, they were closing the road to traffic from 8am to noon. This presented some difficulties for the fam since they wanted to see the finish but didn't want to get out of bed that early. I pulled into the parking lot, said goodbye to my wife, and she drove over to the cabins nearby to meet up with some college friends who came up to hang out for the weekend. They all made it onto the course before the road was closed. One of my wife's sisters and her family tried to get up but they were there a few minutes late and got turned around. The wife's parents and brother stayed in bed with plans to meet us for lunch later.

I went to pick up my packet and threw a couple things in the drop bag. It was cold there at 7300ft a few minutes before 8 but I was confident it was going to warm up. I put my gloves and race shirt in the drop bag and kept my quarter zip base layer on over my sleeveless T.

Right on time, the director called the field of 96 or so to the start line, made a few announcements, and sent us on our way. The first couple miles of the race were pretty tame with gentle rolling hills and no real challenges. I was trying to keep it slow but was moving faster than I had anticipated. No worries, the minutes here are easier to get than those up top.

As I got to the first aid station at mile 3, a few people who went out too fast had come back to me and were hanging around. I grabbed a cup of water, a cup of heed, and walked through the aid station getting them down. As I left, things got steep pretty quickly. I had remembered mile 3 and 8 being the nastiest ones on the elevation profile so I wasn't terribly surprised. I tried running but quickly went to red on the HR and settled into a nice brisk walk. I was still reeling in a couple of the people who were in front of me. After about 1.5mi of steep walking, things didn't get flat, but they did get runnable for stretches. I mixed in some stretches of running with the walking the real steep spots and made it to the half way mark in 1:21. I opened a gel just before entering the AS and washed it down with some water and threw a couple S-caps on top since it was starting to warm up. I decided to shed the base layer here too. Probably about 5 minutes too soon since just as soon as it was tied around my waste I hit a half mile stretch that was completely shaded and I got chilled quickly. Once back in the sun, I settled into walking again to keep the HR in check and still move efficiently. The next couple miles went by with increasing fatigue but I was still moving at a decent pace. Mile 8 got really steep again and I started to slow down on the switchbacks. The final traverse over to the AS at mile 9 was a bit flatter but I felt nauseous after the steep sections and took my time up to the station. After the AS, things got pretty tame with just a few more slight grades and then the bottom dropped out at about mile 11. I caught one person in front of me right at the start of the descent but couldn't quite reel in the next person on my way to the line.

I rounded the last turn and into the parking lot of the ski area. The downhill felt really nice for a change and I was able to push the last mile pretty good. I crossed the line in 2:43:18. We hung out for about an hour chatting about the race and eating some of the post-race grub until the last runner came in and the road re-opened. I was pretty tired on Saturday but never got sore. Felt really good on Sunday and things started creeping up today. Left hamstring is a little tight/sore in spots but nothing that some rest and stretching won't fix.

Looking forward to building on this and taking it into the Rock Canyon Half in December.