The Maze 30k 2022 race report.
I saw a post about how this race was coming up, and I thought "30k! Training Peaks has for many weekends now had a '3 hour or 30k trail run' listed!" I've been doing 3 hours, but I could perhaps be convinced to run 30k if it were supported and marked for me, in a fun new place! Well, "new". I've run out at Walnut Creek several times, though admittedly nearly always during this exact race. But it had been a while. And certainly a very long while since I'd done anything longer than the 10k at any Rogue Trail Series race.
So I signed up! And I signed Matt up for the 10k! And then it turned out to be on a day which Training Peaks called "BIG DAY", where we were supposed to do a 3 hour trail run and also a 5100 yard swim!
Did I mention we applied for and got accepted to the Otillo World Championship for swimrun in Sweden in September? No? Well, that happened. Which is terrifying. And also means our training is ramping up and going into overdrive!
So this was perfect. And would definitely be overachieving a little bit, since I can't do 30k trail in 3 hours.
The morning was great weather: 30s, too cold to want to stand around at all, promised to get up into the 60s and sunny later in the day. Matt's race didn't start for an hour after mine, so he stayed warm in the car while I ducked out of the warmth at 6:47 to make it to the 6:50 pre-race meeting (from Race Director Amber, my original blog stalker!). Then I reluctantly shed my puffy jacket and shoved it into my drop bag, and lined up at the start line. With Clarence, who I hadn't seen in forever! (I haven't seen ANYONE in forever, really.)
The field was Very Small for the 30k. The total race sold out, so I knew the 10k was probably fairly big, but there were definitely not many of us at the 30k start line.
And we were off! My goals for the day: stay upright, run 30k, still be able to do a 5100 yard swim later in the day. I planned to be very conservative so that I still had something left by the 3rd loop. I've done a lot of 3 hour runs lately, but those have mostly been really hilly and super slow runs that netted me 12-13 miles. And then one stint on the Appalachian Trail which was 18 miles, but took basically an entire day to do. Very different. So this was gonna be a potentially painful stretch.
Loop 1 was really just feeling out the course. I've done this race maybe 4 or 5 times? But this was a different course than I'd run in the past. I liked it! Got to see new parts of the trail and it was a great course and never boring and super well marked.
Got to see my favorite race photographer Josh nearly immediately, taking pictures of us doing our first water crossing, and then the very few of us mostly broke apart and everyone went their separate paces.
I say mostly because there was a guy behind me. For a while I hung to the right side of the trail so he could pass me when he wanted, but eventually it became clear he did not want to pass me. Just stayed right behind me. There were a few times that he fell back a little bit, like when I ran straight across creek crossings and he went out of the way a little to get on the rocks and keep his feet dry. Then he'd immediately catch back up. So he was CLEARLY faster than me. But he seemed content to just sit right behind me. And say nothing. Literally he said one single sentence fragment in mile 1, in response to me asking if him scuffing his shoes was helping get the mud off, and then he laughed at one point when I tried to go a stupid way on the trail rather than the smart way. Otherwise nothing.
I don't love strangers running behind me. It makes me nervous. It makes me run faster than I want to. It makes me more prone to trip. Fortunately I never tripped, but it definitely made me feel like I needed to run faster than I would have preferred.
For the entire loop. He just stayed there. I take that back. As we got back to the parking lot leading to the timing mat to start a second loop, he passed me. I guess he wanted it to be on record that he beat me on that loop. Whatever, dude. JUST GO AWAY. I crossed my fingers he wouldn't get in behind me on the second loop, or I was just going to stop and wait until he went, and then settle in slower.
I took my time between loops 1 and 2. I took off my long sleeve shirt, because it had gotten too warm for it. Or rather, I had gotten too warm. It probably wasn't any warmer outside yet. I stashed that under my drop bag and went ahead and grabbed all my extra gels, because I didn't want to have to stop again the next loop. I also retied my right shoe, which I had TRIPLE KNOTTED to try to keep from having to re-tie it, but it had loosened in all the water crossings anyway. And then I refilled one of my water bottles.
The guy was at the aid station this whole time, and I was dreading him taking off when I did, but fortunately when I started running, he didn't fall in behind me. He did end up leaving shortly after I did, and he passed me basically like I was standing still. I guess he just wanted a REALLY conservative first loop, and did it at the expense of .. my first loop. I know, if it bothered me so much, I should have said something. That's not how I do, though.
But now I was finally alone, on the hardest loop mentally. First loop everything is new and exciting. 3rd loop is the last loop and you know you're seeing everything for the last time, and you're almost done. 2nd loop is just.. the middle.
But it was fine. The best part, and the part that made it tolerable, was that this was the loop where I saw the most people. On the first loop, all the faster people took off and I never saw them again, and the people slower than me never passed me, so it was just me and my shadow. Second loop I started to catch some of the 10k people! And eventually the 20k fasties started to pass me! So many people, relatively speaking! I also found Matt, and got to make sure he was doing okay, and grab a kiss.
Otherwise just mentally hard, still feeling physically okay, but definitely going slower than the first loop, which was good.
There was mud on the course basically in two places, one near the beginning which was negligible, just a little sticky. Then one mud pit in the last mile that was unavoidable, and deep and slidey. I'd kinda stuck to the edge on loop 1, didn't get too muddy. This loop there were maybe 6 people all going through there at the same time I ran up, all trying to walk or tiptoe or hug the fence and not get muddy. I just barreled right through the middle of them, no time for that nonsense.
I was determined to get in and out for loop 3 as quickly as possible, so I didn't have any opportunity to think about how tired I was and how I didn't really want to go out again. As I got to the finish line, there was Josh again, photographing the finish line! Except this wasn't my finish line, I still had another loop. So as I ran across the timing mat, I flipped Josh off, much to the amusement of everyone nearby. Then he stuck his hand out for a highfive as I went by him.
After shooing off the volunteer who tried to give me a medal, I hit the aid station to refill my partially empty bottle. I had some trouble getting the lid back on, so the volunteer helped me screw it on. Thank you, volunteer!
Then back out again quickly, before I had time to think.
This loop was slow. Expected, and definitely some fallout from doing loop 1 a little too aggressively, but I was determined to get it done as quickly as I could. Faster I run, sooner I'm done. Just kept repeating that to myself.
This loop had basically no people. Maybe 3 groups of people, 6 people total? All near the beginning of the loop. The good news is, it was warming up and sunny, and the course wasn't closed, so there were a LOT of people just out walking with their off-leash dogs, so a lot of dogs for me to talk to and want to pet!
And that got me through the third loop, eventually. I managed to not walk, even on the long hills that I figured I'd be walking by the third loop. I wasn't breaking any speed records, but I wasn't walking.
I managed to never fall, nor even to come close. It's not super technical out there, but there are plenty of rocks and roots, and I'm usually pretty clumsy by the end of a long trail run. But I was fine.
Fun course. There's very few times when it is flat and straight. It's usually either going up or down or around, endlessly. Makes it hard to get into any sort of rhythm and zone out, but also keeps you from ever getting bored or complacent.
Oh! I almost added a ton of distance to my third loop! Almost forgot.
In the last couple miles, I came down a little hill and looked up to see another runner ahead of me. And it was Clarence! I was so excited to see someone I knew, I ran straight toward him and fell in behind him on the trail to see how he was doing. Except before I could get out more than 'hi', he's like, 'shouldn't you have turned back there?' I did briefly think "wait, is there a place on the course where you go twice? this is weird", but shrugged it off because yay friend!
But I realized he was right, and said goodbye and backtracked. It was completely negligible as far as adding distance, maybe 15ft off course. I did go all the way back to the last sign to make sure I was going the right way, and sure enough, the sign pointed off to the right, to cross the creek again. If you follow the sign, you don't see the flags and arrows going the way Clarence was, by design. I just missed that arrow sign because I was paying attention to the wrong thing.
But fortunately Clarence kept me from adding many miles on to my run! I did not need those miles.
The last few miles, I was very ready to be done. I tried to keep as upbeat as I could, but I was in full slog mode. I was pretty proud that I'd busted out 18 trail miles, though. And super proud that I hadn't let myself get into my own head about the fact that I still had to go swim 5000 yards. I was afraid I was gonna be really negative about that, but I was actually a little excited.
The last mile through the parking lot and perimeter trails and sidewalks was a bit of an obstacle course, there were so many people and families and dogs out now, but I navigated my way through, and to the finish line! Matt was waiting to cheer me in, and I got high fives from him and from Josh, who had packed up his camera stuff but had been hanging out and chatting with Matt while they waited for me.
NOW I finally got a medal.
Total finish time: 03:46:50. Definitely not fast, but a 12:31 pace is actually faster than most of my trail runs. And even though it wasn't what you would call a Hilly Run, it ended up being 1701 feet of elevation gain, simply because it was so many little hills over and over. Deeefinitely got slower over the course of the run:
Lap 1 01:11:37
Lap 2 01:15:29
Lap 3 01:19:44
Josh headed out and Matt and I grabbed a donut and chatted with Kyle for a few minutes. As we started to leave, RD Amber said "Bushes, don't go anywhere!" So we didn't, and a minute later she announced the award ceremony for the 30k race, where I got 3rd overall female! Granted, 1st and 2nd place came in literally one hour before me, but still! I'll take it! And there WERE 4 women who came in after me, so it wasn't just that only 3 women total finished.
I won a knife! Which is odd, but cool.
And then we picked up breakfast tacos and went home. I ate one taco, waited about 10 minutes, and decided just to go get it the hell over with. A little afraid I would end up putting that taco back in the pool. But it actually ended up being fine! And though my legs were a little tired on the pushoff, the only real issue was cramming my angry bunions into fins for the intervals that required fins.
Overall a solid day of training! Evidently we're going to do a few of these, and also a few monster weekends where we basically do this both days of the weekend.
I'm hoping to be able to do several more races as training runs, to get me off of the Greenbelt, where I'll otherwise be for most of the next 6 months.
So I signed up! And I signed Matt up for the 10k! And then it turned out to be on a day which Training Peaks called "BIG DAY", where we were supposed to do a 3 hour trail run and also a 5100 yard swim!
Did I mention we applied for and got accepted to the Otillo World Championship for swimrun in Sweden in September? No? Well, that happened. Which is terrifying. And also means our training is ramping up and going into overdrive!
So this was perfect. And would definitely be overachieving a little bit, since I can't do 30k trail in 3 hours.
The morning was great weather: 30s, too cold to want to stand around at all, promised to get up into the 60s and sunny later in the day. Matt's race didn't start for an hour after mine, so he stayed warm in the car while I ducked out of the warmth at 6:47 to make it to the 6:50 pre-race meeting (from Race Director Amber, my original blog stalker!). Then I reluctantly shed my puffy jacket and shoved it into my drop bag, and lined up at the start line. With Clarence, who I hadn't seen in forever! (I haven't seen ANYONE in forever, really.)
The field was Very Small for the 30k. The total race sold out, so I knew the 10k was probably fairly big, but there were definitely not many of us at the 30k start line.
And we were off! My goals for the day: stay upright, run 30k, still be able to do a 5100 yard swim later in the day. I planned to be very conservative so that I still had something left by the 3rd loop. I've done a lot of 3 hour runs lately, but those have mostly been really hilly and super slow runs that netted me 12-13 miles. And then one stint on the Appalachian Trail which was 18 miles, but took basically an entire day to do. Very different. So this was gonna be a potentially painful stretch.
Loop 1 was really just feeling out the course. I've done this race maybe 4 or 5 times? But this was a different course than I'd run in the past. I liked it! Got to see new parts of the trail and it was a great course and never boring and super well marked.
Got to see my favorite race photographer Josh nearly immediately, taking pictures of us doing our first water crossing, and then the very few of us mostly broke apart and everyone went their separate paces.
I say mostly because there was a guy behind me. For a while I hung to the right side of the trail so he could pass me when he wanted, but eventually it became clear he did not want to pass me. Just stayed right behind me. There were a few times that he fell back a little bit, like when I ran straight across creek crossings and he went out of the way a little to get on the rocks and keep his feet dry. Then he'd immediately catch back up. So he was CLEARLY faster than me. But he seemed content to just sit right behind me. And say nothing. Literally he said one single sentence fragment in mile 1, in response to me asking if him scuffing his shoes was helping get the mud off, and then he laughed at one point when I tried to go a stupid way on the trail rather than the smart way. Otherwise nothing.
I don't love strangers running behind me. It makes me nervous. It makes me run faster than I want to. It makes me more prone to trip. Fortunately I never tripped, but it definitely made me feel like I needed to run faster than I would have preferred.
For the entire loop. He just stayed there. I take that back. As we got back to the parking lot leading to the timing mat to start a second loop, he passed me. I guess he wanted it to be on record that he beat me on that loop. Whatever, dude. JUST GO AWAY. I crossed my fingers he wouldn't get in behind me on the second loop, or I was just going to stop and wait until he went, and then settle in slower.
I took my time between loops 1 and 2. I took off my long sleeve shirt, because it had gotten too warm for it. Or rather, I had gotten too warm. It probably wasn't any warmer outside yet. I stashed that under my drop bag and went ahead and grabbed all my extra gels, because I didn't want to have to stop again the next loop. I also retied my right shoe, which I had TRIPLE KNOTTED to try to keep from having to re-tie it, but it had loosened in all the water crossings anyway. And then I refilled one of my water bottles.
The guy was at the aid station this whole time, and I was dreading him taking off when I did, but fortunately when I started running, he didn't fall in behind me. He did end up leaving shortly after I did, and he passed me basically like I was standing still. I guess he just wanted a REALLY conservative first loop, and did it at the expense of .. my first loop. I know, if it bothered me so much, I should have said something. That's not how I do, though.
But now I was finally alone, on the hardest loop mentally. First loop everything is new and exciting. 3rd loop is the last loop and you know you're seeing everything for the last time, and you're almost done. 2nd loop is just.. the middle.
But it was fine. The best part, and the part that made it tolerable, was that this was the loop where I saw the most people. On the first loop, all the faster people took off and I never saw them again, and the people slower than me never passed me, so it was just me and my shadow. Second loop I started to catch some of the 10k people! And eventually the 20k fasties started to pass me! So many people, relatively speaking! I also found Matt, and got to make sure he was doing okay, and grab a kiss.
Otherwise just mentally hard, still feeling physically okay, but definitely going slower than the first loop, which was good.
There was mud on the course basically in two places, one near the beginning which was negligible, just a little sticky. Then one mud pit in the last mile that was unavoidable, and deep and slidey. I'd kinda stuck to the edge on loop 1, didn't get too muddy. This loop there were maybe 6 people all going through there at the same time I ran up, all trying to walk or tiptoe or hug the fence and not get muddy. I just barreled right through the middle of them, no time for that nonsense.
I was determined to get in and out for loop 3 as quickly as possible, so I didn't have any opportunity to think about how tired I was and how I didn't really want to go out again. As I got to the finish line, there was Josh again, photographing the finish line! Except this wasn't my finish line, I still had another loop. So as I ran across the timing mat, I flipped Josh off, much to the amusement of everyone nearby. Then he stuck his hand out for a highfive as I went by him.
After shooing off the volunteer who tried to give me a medal, I hit the aid station to refill my partially empty bottle. I had some trouble getting the lid back on, so the volunteer helped me screw it on. Thank you, volunteer!
Then back out again quickly, before I had time to think.
This loop was slow. Expected, and definitely some fallout from doing loop 1 a little too aggressively, but I was determined to get it done as quickly as I could. Faster I run, sooner I'm done. Just kept repeating that to myself.
This loop had basically no people. Maybe 3 groups of people, 6 people total? All near the beginning of the loop. The good news is, it was warming up and sunny, and the course wasn't closed, so there were a LOT of people just out walking with their off-leash dogs, so a lot of dogs for me to talk to and want to pet!
And that got me through the third loop, eventually. I managed to not walk, even on the long hills that I figured I'd be walking by the third loop. I wasn't breaking any speed records, but I wasn't walking.
I managed to never fall, nor even to come close. It's not super technical out there, but there are plenty of rocks and roots, and I'm usually pretty clumsy by the end of a long trail run. But I was fine.
Fun course. There's very few times when it is flat and straight. It's usually either going up or down or around, endlessly. Makes it hard to get into any sort of rhythm and zone out, but also keeps you from ever getting bored or complacent.
Oh! I almost added a ton of distance to my third loop! Almost forgot.
In the last couple miles, I came down a little hill and looked up to see another runner ahead of me. And it was Clarence! I was so excited to see someone I knew, I ran straight toward him and fell in behind him on the trail to see how he was doing. Except before I could get out more than 'hi', he's like, 'shouldn't you have turned back there?' I did briefly think "wait, is there a place on the course where you go twice? this is weird", but shrugged it off because yay friend!
But I realized he was right, and said goodbye and backtracked. It was completely negligible as far as adding distance, maybe 15ft off course. I did go all the way back to the last sign to make sure I was going the right way, and sure enough, the sign pointed off to the right, to cross the creek again. If you follow the sign, you don't see the flags and arrows going the way Clarence was, by design. I just missed that arrow sign because I was paying attention to the wrong thing.
But fortunately Clarence kept me from adding many miles on to my run! I did not need those miles.
The last few miles, I was very ready to be done. I tried to keep as upbeat as I could, but I was in full slog mode. I was pretty proud that I'd busted out 18 trail miles, though. And super proud that I hadn't let myself get into my own head about the fact that I still had to go swim 5000 yards. I was afraid I was gonna be really negative about that, but I was actually a little excited.
The last mile through the parking lot and perimeter trails and sidewalks was a bit of an obstacle course, there were so many people and families and dogs out now, but I navigated my way through, and to the finish line! Matt was waiting to cheer me in, and I got high fives from him and from Josh, who had packed up his camera stuff but had been hanging out and chatting with Matt while they waited for me.
NOW I finally got a medal.
Total finish time: 03:46:50. Definitely not fast, but a 12:31 pace is actually faster than most of my trail runs. And even though it wasn't what you would call a Hilly Run, it ended up being 1701 feet of elevation gain, simply because it was so many little hills over and over. Deeefinitely got slower over the course of the run:
Lap 1 01:11:37
Lap 2 01:15:29
Lap 3 01:19:44
Josh headed out and Matt and I grabbed a donut and chatted with Kyle for a few minutes. As we started to leave, RD Amber said "Bushes, don't go anywhere!" So we didn't, and a minute later she announced the award ceremony for the 30k race, where I got 3rd overall female! Granted, 1st and 2nd place came in literally one hour before me, but still! I'll take it! And there WERE 4 women who came in after me, so it wasn't just that only 3 women total finished.
I won a knife! Which is odd, but cool.
And then we picked up breakfast tacos and went home. I ate one taco, waited about 10 minutes, and decided just to go get it the hell over with. A little afraid I would end up putting that taco back in the pool. But it actually ended up being fine! And though my legs were a little tired on the pushoff, the only real issue was cramming my angry bunions into fins for the intervals that required fins.
Overall a solid day of training! Evidently we're going to do a few of these, and also a few monster weekends where we basically do this both days of the weekend.
I'm hoping to be able to do several more races as training runs, to get me off of the Greenbelt, where I'll otherwise be for most of the next 6 months.