Peavine Falls Race Report

July 1 - July 7
S:  15,680 yd - 3hr 40min
B:  194.18 mi - 11hr 26min
R:  45.15 mi - 5hr 56min
Total:  21hr 2min

Two records this week...biggest weekly hours and longest bike ride!  Having a holiday weekend with nothing to do but drink coffee/beer, watch the Tour, eat, nap, and sleep 10 hrs/night does wonders for recovery.  And on top of that I managed to get a race in too.  The Peavine Falls Run is held every 4th of July in Birmingham at Oak Mountain State Park.  It's a tough 8.2 mile course, climbing 3.5 miles to the top of Peavine Falls at ~1100 ft before turning around and descending back to the start line...finishing up with ~1.2 miles on some nice single track trail.  Having never done this race before I felt obligated to throw my name in the hat.  The main goal was to get a top 10 finish.  Race conditions were actually quite nice.  As it is usually 100 degrees this time of year, 75 degrees and pouring rain was kind of nice, although it would make for an interesting end to the race on the trail.

The race started off like all races do; everyone tries to see how they can manage to blow themselves up in the first 2 minutes of the race.  As Brian says, "proper pacing is proper racing".  I ran the first mile in 6:28 and I swear there were at least 25 people in front of me.  By mile 1.5 I watched about 10-15 spectacular blow-ups and had moved myself up to around 10th or 11th place.  I found myself in a group of 4 for the remainder of the climb before gapping them slightly just before the top.  At the turnaround I could see that I was in 7th place.

The descent back down the mountain was FUN!  I was afraid to look behind me because I knew I had a few guys on my heels so I just tried to push it as hard as I could.  Near the end of the descent I was passed by 2 guys right before hopping on the single track trail section.  The trail section was sketch.  I got gapped a little bit and was hurting bad...the trail was slick, muddy, rocky, and rooty, and it was all I could do to just stay upright.  I was now sitting in 10th place and also had Elena Linn right on my heels.  Great, now I might have to sprint for the finish line to a) not get chicked and b) attain a top 10 finish.  Luckily, I moved away somewhere near the end of the trail and crossed the line in 53:23, good for a 10th place finish, whew!  Despite the rainy conditions, it was a record turnout.  Thanks to all the RD for organizing this awesome race and thanks to all the volunteers for standing out in the rain all morning!

overall results