RR: Dog Dash with DeeDee
(Formerly Dog Dash for DeeDee)
October 9, 2004
http://www.adn.com/sports/story/5654902p-5586378c.html
This race was to help a local cancer patient and was started 2 yrs ago
to help DeeDee Jonrowe (a top female musher who also runs) when she was
diagnosed with cancer 2 yrs ago. The race is put on by the Valley
Women's Running Team of which DeeDee is a member. Dee Dee helps with the
race as well as runs it now, which was great to see 🙂 In other words,
this race is "special" locally. So special, in fact, that the new
outhouse at the trailhead was dedicated by one of the borough assembly
people before the race start. (you have to see the old one to
appreciate) This was one of those fun runs that got tv coverage because
of the cause (DeeDee is super popular, and everybody loves dogs) as well
as some local land-use issues. The race didn't have as much fanfare this
time, but still had separate runs without/with dogs.
Weather was about perfect for running: low 40's overcast with a breeze
(5-10 mph) in the open starting area, but calmer on the trails with most
of the breeze cooling you off at tops of hills (re-zipped shirt in the
breezy areas). Rain had been forecast, but none occurred, and it had
dried out enough from past rains, that the trail was almost perfect.
Many fallen leaves covered the trail (ski trail so no real problem with
leaves hiding roots and rocks), but some trees still had their golden
yellow leaves. Duh, normal temperatures, good footing, what more could a
runner ask for?
These are some of the trails I run most often (about 15 min from my
house and out-the-door from our lab connects with them also), so I knew
what the finish looked like (uphill), although I couldn't remember the
details of the course from last time. The route was partially backwards
from the way I normally run to add some surprise. There was a lot more
flat and far fewer hills (and smaller) than what I remembered. This may
be an artifact of the fact that on short hill runs, I pick the hilliest
routes - and this plus the people pointing directions probably is what
accounted for faster race times than training times. This is the maze
that I mention sometimes: 19 intersections in 3 miles.
The race itself was fairly uneventful. It was the week after state hs xc
state championships so the local hs kids took the front line. And even
though there was lots more room for people in the front line, most
people chose to line up behind them, and several fighting for the back
of the pack. Run without dogs had 31 entrants.
Anyway, I started at back, a couple older women were farther back and
they had kids that sprinted for a very short distance then walked, then
repeated that until they dropped back, never more to be seen after the
first few minutes. I probably ran about 90% of the race alone - passed
one guy on one hill and was closing on another woman on a later hill
(probably approaching 2 miles). But I could tell by the way she was
run/walking the hills and the space that would develop while I was on a
hill and she was on a flat, she was doing it intelligently so I didn't
attempt to go after the dying. If I hadn't been recovering from a head
cold and huffing and puffing on the hill approaching the finish line, I
might have caught her during a walk break, but she heard me and started
running again. My afterburners didn't have much in them because of my cold.
I did pass a mtn biker on the *down* hill 😉 (Some congestion as the run
with dogs was starting up hill that I was heading down, and there wasn't
room for the mtn biker to get down, but I could slip past him and stay
at edge easily. I excused myself when I went by. Hey, it's a race, I
wasn't about to break momentum at that point.) I thought there might be
a couple more steep hills, based on my perception of number of hills and
time involved, but there wasn't.
I finished in 37:07 (a PR, I guess since I've never run a 3 mi race
before sans snowshoes; faster than I do a flat fartlek run of same
distance), waited for other runners and the runers with dogs (started
1/2 hr later) to finish, the raffle / awards, helped clean up, and then
went for a recovery run to get at least 1 hr running for the day. The
days with weather this nice are probably going to be few in the next
several months so decided to take advantage of it, esp. since I had
missed a day while travelling this week.
Oh, yeah, and it's a lot easier running when you don't have 3 inches of
slush 😉 I think some of the hill work I've been doing has been paying
off - nothing obviously sore today, not even knees after steep downhills.
Thanks for reading.
Dot
--
"So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste
away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog