In 1837 a group of Whig farmers from the town of Penfield, NY listened to a prominent statesmen of the the time, Daniel Webster speak about the economy while he was in the city of Rochester. They were so impressed by his speech that they petitioned the state legislature to separate from Penfield and name the new town after statesman Webster. In 1840 the northern part of Penfield officially seceded and my quaint little town of Webster, NY was born. The town has a total area of 35.5 miles, sits on the shores of Lake Ontario and boasts a population of 37,000. I've lived here most of my life and I agree with the town's corny motto of it being "Where Life is Worth Living."
One of the reasons that I like living here so much is because that it's got long, winding, hilly roads that are just perfect for distance running. A few years ago I branched out and began running the local trail system. I wasn't much of a trail runner at the time. When I first started running I always preferred running on the roads versus trails. But after some exploration I was shocked to find that my town's trail system was quite large, well maintained and just beautiful. Ever since then I've made it a habit to try to get on a trail during my training at least once a week. My town has the best of both worlds.
On the heels of having one of the best races of my life taking third in late May at the St. Rita's inaugural 10K, I just couldn't pass up racing the inaugural Webster Trail Classic 10 Mile. It wasn't only going to be the first time the race was run, but in 13 years of running it was going to be my first trail race!
The race was created by Andy frank owner of Flower City Race Works which mostly produces off-road running and cycling events for Western, NY. Really nice guy who was informative, thorough and did an excellent job of producing this race. The race encompassed close to 10 miles of trails running through three major parks in my hometown, Webster Park, Whiting Road Nature Preserve and the Gosnell Big Woods Preserve. The race drew me right in because like the previous month's race, it was on trails that I was somewhat familiar with and the start was practically right out my front door again.
On June 6th, I woke up feeling pretty darn good for a race morning. The night before was perfect sleeping weather with temps in the low 50's and thunderstorms. At the time I didn't realize how bad this really was, but I'll get to that. I ate my typical pre-running breakfast of Starbucks coffee and wheat bagel with peanut butter. I was feeling well rested after my coach putting me through a mini-taper the days leading up to the race. I hopped in my truck and anxiously drove to the lodge in Webster Park that was going to act as the starting point for the race.
I knew from Andy's race emails that parking was going to be limited at the lodge. So I left a little early. A lot good that did! I didn't realize how appealing this race looked to everyone else other than me. The 50 car parking lot was already full with another 45 minutes to go before race start. Not a huge issue, but I had to park in an auxiliary lot and walk about a quarter mile to the lodge. The walk wasn't that long and it helped quell my nervousness. Agh! It was my first trail race! I was so excited! I was also nervous about the whole directional thing. The trails were going to be marked with flags to guide runners. But it was advertised as being 10 miles long and there were only going to be two water stops. That meant not a lot of volunteers deep into the trails. It was going to be mostly up to me to keep on the right path. Anyone who knows me knows that I've got really shitty directional sense on open roads. Putting me on trails and asking me to find my way was going to be hilarious! But you never know until you try and I really wanted to say that I tried trail racing at least once in my life!
I got to the lodge and peeked around a bit. Not surprisingly, I didn't recognize anyone. Road runners are so different from trail runners and I just don't know as many of them as I do the road breed. So I walked over to the finishing section of the trail to see what the flags looked like and what condition the trails were in. The temps had climbed to the mid to upper 50's, the sun was shinning through moderate clouds and the rain was long gone, at least in the sky. The trails had a lot of deep standing water. I'm no sissy about getting dirty and I wore my Brooks trails shoes. So I wasn't too worried. Knowing what I know now, I should've been terrified.
I shuffled over to the start line, slammed a gel, threw on my iPod and checked the straps on my running pack. Andy gave some additional instructions and before I knew it, me and over a hundred other runners kicked off the first Webster Trail Classic! Fairly quickly the crowd bottle necked as we transitioned from the start field to the trail system. This was a little frustrating for me because I didn't have the wiggle room in road races to maneuver around the slower runners. This was something I fought almost the entire race.
I didn't stay clean for long. I didn't realize it at first glance, but the heavy rains had made the trails dangerously slick with mud and standing puddles. At first I tried avoid the puddles as best I could. But that was proving to be dangerous as I watched several runners go down. I decided that the best way was to go through them like a tank. It worked well for me. I thankfully never slipped, but I was far from clean and dry.
Before this race intellectually I knew that trail running was harder than road running. There's so much more to watch out for. You trade watching for distracted drives with watching out for roots and slick mud. But throw in the mini-hills and you have something akin to waging war. I was astonished to have my Garmin read something like 14:00 for my first mile! There wasn't going to be any fast miles this race. It was going to be a long, slow battle back to the finish line. The trail widened out a bit. So I was able to maneuver around some of the slower runners. But this turned out to be a depressing exercise in futility. Every time I'd pass a runner, half a mile or mile later they would pass me. At the time it seemed like a never ending frustrating game of cat and mouse!
The next few miles were just as challenging as the first. For a mile or two I'd been following an older female runner. This turned out to be a really good decision because she never slipped, knew where the hell she was going and looked like she glided up and down the trail with no effort at all. She stopped briefly and we struck up a conversation. Her name was Beth, a local school teacher and one hell of an experienced distance and trail runner. I could barely get words out from being winded so much. She talked like she was on a damn walk. Lots of good conditioning and skill in that woman! In fact, most of the better runners in the race were women as far as I could see. A little over half-way through the race I just couldn't keep up with her anymore. She lost me somewhere in the nature preserve. I was on my own now. Gulp! It was no road race, it had tons of challenges. But the views were spectacular in the fields and the running easier there too. I remember wanting to stop and get pics of the sun on the preserve's fields but thinking that I might not start running again if I did. There were no pics.
I didn't have to wait long for the torture to begin anew. The transition from the preserve back to the trail was like being swallowed by a gigantic beast. The next couple of miles made me realize that I never should've put my running music back on after Beth left me. I took a wrong turn at one of the trail's forks. If it wasn't for a helpful volunteer who chased me down I'd probably still be out there trying to finish. At least that one wasn't as costly as the next time that I lost the trail and climbed a sheer hill. Only to get to the top and have another runner yell to me that the trail was down at the bottom. The hills were taking a huge toll on me and to think I just climbed all that for nothing was disheartening. It hurt just as much going freaking down as it did going freaking up!
It's rare for me to wish a race be over. But after watching a young woman trip face first over a root in front of me, get briefly knocked out and probably break a rib I realized how dangerous this race was for me. I never factored in the rain. One bad slip and I'd potentially be looking at two back injuries in one year.
Even with my two wrong turns I was thrilled to see the finish line earlier than the advertised 10 mile distance. I've never been so relieved to finish a race! I grabbed some water, hobbled over to a tree and tried to catch my breath. I watched that same girl that I saw trip limp through the finish line. For as bad as she looked Beth trotted up to me looking like she'd been doing nothing at all. We chatted briefly. But I didn't have much to say. I was totally exhausted! It was all I could do to get back to my truck standing.
Overall I'd say this race was an excellent one. But that's if you're an experienced trail runner. I used to think I was a trail runner too. Looking back I now realize that the sections of trail that I routinely run on are MUCH less technical than the ones in this race. I'm no trail runner. I have nothing against the trail running breed. If anything, I can now say that I've got a ton of new found respect for people who can run 30 minutes faster than me in those conditions. I can't believe they do that for fun! Good race. Good experience. But any race less than the distance of a marathon that leaves my whole body, including individual toes, ache for four days is not in my future again! For me, I'm sticking to the roads!
One of the reasons that I like living here so much is because that it's got long, winding, hilly roads that are just perfect for distance running. A few years ago I branched out and began running the local trail system. I wasn't much of a trail runner at the time. When I first started running I always preferred running on the roads versus trails. But after some exploration I was shocked to find that my town's trail system was quite large, well maintained and just beautiful. Ever since then I've made it a habit to try to get on a trail during my training at least once a week. My town has the best of both worlds.
On the heels of having one of the best races of my life taking third in late May at the St. Rita's inaugural 10K, I just couldn't pass up racing the inaugural Webster Trail Classic 10 Mile. It wasn't only going to be the first time the race was run, but in 13 years of running it was going to be my first trail race!
The race was created by Andy frank owner of Flower City Race Works which mostly produces off-road running and cycling events for Western, NY. Really nice guy who was informative, thorough and did an excellent job of producing this race. The race encompassed close to 10 miles of trails running through three major parks in my hometown, Webster Park, Whiting Road Nature Preserve and the Gosnell Big Woods Preserve. The race drew me right in because like the previous month's race, it was on trails that I was somewhat familiar with and the start was practically right out my front door again.
On June 6th, I woke up feeling pretty darn good for a race morning. The night before was perfect sleeping weather with temps in the low 50's and thunderstorms. At the time I didn't realize how bad this really was, but I'll get to that. I ate my typical pre-running breakfast of Starbucks coffee and wheat bagel with peanut butter. I was feeling well rested after my coach putting me through a mini-taper the days leading up to the race. I hopped in my truck and anxiously drove to the lodge in Webster Park that was going to act as the starting point for the race.
I knew from Andy's race emails that parking was going to be limited at the lodge. So I left a little early. A lot good that did! I didn't realize how appealing this race looked to everyone else other than me. The 50 car parking lot was already full with another 45 minutes to go before race start. Not a huge issue, but I had to park in an auxiliary lot and walk about a quarter mile to the lodge. The walk wasn't that long and it helped quell my nervousness. Agh! It was my first trail race! I was so excited! I was also nervous about the whole directional thing. The trails were going to be marked with flags to guide runners. But it was advertised as being 10 miles long and there were only going to be two water stops. That meant not a lot of volunteers deep into the trails. It was going to be mostly up to me to keep on the right path. Anyone who knows me knows that I've got really shitty directional sense on open roads. Putting me on trails and asking me to find my way was going to be hilarious! But you never know until you try and I really wanted to say that I tried trail racing at least once in my life!
I got to the lodge and peeked around a bit. Not surprisingly, I didn't recognize anyone. Road runners are so different from trail runners and I just don't know as many of them as I do the road breed. So I walked over to the finishing section of the trail to see what the flags looked like and what condition the trails were in. The temps had climbed to the mid to upper 50's, the sun was shinning through moderate clouds and the rain was long gone, at least in the sky. The trails had a lot of deep standing water. I'm no sissy about getting dirty and I wore my Brooks trails shoes. So I wasn't too worried. Knowing what I know now, I should've been terrified.
I shuffled over to the start line, slammed a gel, threw on my iPod and checked the straps on my running pack. Andy gave some additional instructions and before I knew it, me and over a hundred other runners kicked off the first Webster Trail Classic! Fairly quickly the crowd bottle necked as we transitioned from the start field to the trail system. This was a little frustrating for me because I didn't have the wiggle room in road races to maneuver around the slower runners. This was something I fought almost the entire race.
I didn't stay clean for long. I didn't realize it at first glance, but the heavy rains had made the trails dangerously slick with mud and standing puddles. At first I tried avoid the puddles as best I could. But that was proving to be dangerous as I watched several runners go down. I decided that the best way was to go through them like a tank. It worked well for me. I thankfully never slipped, but I was far from clean and dry.
Before this race intellectually I knew that trail running was harder than road running. There's so much more to watch out for. You trade watching for distracted drives with watching out for roots and slick mud. But throw in the mini-hills and you have something akin to waging war. I was astonished to have my Garmin read something like 14:00 for my first mile! There wasn't going to be any fast miles this race. It was going to be a long, slow battle back to the finish line. The trail widened out a bit. So I was able to maneuver around some of the slower runners. But this turned out to be a depressing exercise in futility. Every time I'd pass a runner, half a mile or mile later they would pass me. At the time it seemed like a never ending frustrating game of cat and mouse!
The next few miles were just as challenging as the first. For a mile or two I'd been following an older female runner. This turned out to be a really good decision because she never slipped, knew where the hell she was going and looked like she glided up and down the trail with no effort at all. She stopped briefly and we struck up a conversation. Her name was Beth, a local school teacher and one hell of an experienced distance and trail runner. I could barely get words out from being winded so much. She talked like she was on a damn walk. Lots of good conditioning and skill in that woman! In fact, most of the better runners in the race were women as far as I could see. A little over half-way through the race I just couldn't keep up with her anymore. She lost me somewhere in the nature preserve. I was on my own now. Gulp! It was no road race, it had tons of challenges. But the views were spectacular in the fields and the running easier there too. I remember wanting to stop and get pics of the sun on the preserve's fields but thinking that I might not start running again if I did. There were no pics.
I didn't have to wait long for the torture to begin anew. The transition from the preserve back to the trail was like being swallowed by a gigantic beast. The next couple of miles made me realize that I never should've put my running music back on after Beth left me. I took a wrong turn at one of the trail's forks. If it wasn't for a helpful volunteer who chased me down I'd probably still be out there trying to finish. At least that one wasn't as costly as the next time that I lost the trail and climbed a sheer hill. Only to get to the top and have another runner yell to me that the trail was down at the bottom. The hills were taking a huge toll on me and to think I just climbed all that for nothing was disheartening. It hurt just as much going freaking down as it did going freaking up!
It's rare for me to wish a race be over. But after watching a young woman trip face first over a root in front of me, get briefly knocked out and probably break a rib I realized how dangerous this race was for me. I never factored in the rain. One bad slip and I'd potentially be looking at two back injuries in one year.
Even with my two wrong turns I was thrilled to see the finish line earlier than the advertised 10 mile distance. I've never been so relieved to finish a race! I grabbed some water, hobbled over to a tree and tried to catch my breath. I watched that same girl that I saw trip limp through the finish line. For as bad as she looked Beth trotted up to me looking like she'd been doing nothing at all. We chatted briefly. But I didn't have much to say. I was totally exhausted! It was all I could do to get back to my truck standing.
Overall I'd say this race was an excellent one. But that's if you're an experienced trail runner. I used to think I was a trail runner too. Looking back I now realize that the sections of trail that I routinely run on are MUCH less technical than the ones in this race. I'm no trail runner. I have nothing against the trail running breed. If anything, I can now say that I've got a ton of new found respect for people who can run 30 minutes faster than me in those conditions. I can't believe they do that for fun! Good race. Good experience. But any race less than the distance of a marathon that leaves my whole body, including individual toes, ache for four days is not in my future again! For me, I'm sticking to the roads!
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