Pilot Hill 25K

While my incredibly awesome and badass friend and to-be pacer at Leadville, Cat, was out in Bryce Canyon running the inaugural Bryce Canyon 100 miler in an awesome time, I drove up to windy & chilly Laramie, Wyoming with a couple friends to run the Pilot Hill 25K trail race.

2003 Cross-Country Season

I am a huge fan of the small, local, niche trail race environment. All of your closest running friends toeing the line in frigid morning conditions with the wind whipping at your face, all of us turning purple from the wind and cold, jumping up and down and shivering miserably with a couple kegs of home-brew taunting us from a few feet away. I might complain about not wanting to run in the moment, but the reality is that it's a delicious reminscence of high school cross-country season.


Just after 8 am, the race began, with us runners charging 25m or so down the road to a tight turn onto double-track sandy trail. The course basically climbs steadily uphill for around 8.5 miles at a just-steep-enough-to-hurt grade, but not so steep that you can really get away with walking anything at all. The terrain alternates from sandy double-track to limestone pitted trails to rutted out rocky hills and back again. My head felt fuzzy the whole climb and my stomach was dancing a bit from my pizza breakfast (which I definitely knew at the time would be a bad idea), so I was generally happy that my uphill performance wasn't nearly as pathetic as it could have been. The last bit of the climb winds around 3 steep switchbacks that are so close to the top it would be ridiculous to walk them, but are just horribly not fun at all to be running up. I broke into a walk on the second steep section only to hear Mary Boyts call me out from behind and order me to get my butt in gear and back to running. Yes ma'am! Mile splits up: 8:35, 8:21, 9:17, 9:29, 10:04, 11:11, 12:15, 10:29, 10:11 (part uphill, part back downhill).



The whole field just after the start, running straight into a *fun* headwind (photo credit: Nora Testerman)

At the turn-around, I threw back a few sips of water and took off down the hill, running hard. About 3/4 of a mile down the hill, I found myself facing a cattle grate that I had no memory of coming over on the way up. Abby was right behind me as I crossed over and stopped. We looked at each other and around at our surroundings and couldn't see any orange flags in the horizon, nor did we recognize any of this section. So we u-turned back over the cattle grates, running hard back up the hill and found the turn-off that we'd both missed. Whoops! But that marks my first time ever going off-course in a race, so I guess that's cool. I kept on running as hard as I thought I could maintain for a 7 mile downhill, with Abby right on my heels almost the whole way.

Coming out of the last aid station, maybe 2 miles to the finish line, the tendon behind my left knee locked up a bit and, as we turned back into the wind, Abby passed in front of me. I tried to match and just...didn't. It wasn't really that I didn't have it in my legs, but I think I just psyched myself out at the thought of another couple fast miles and mentally checked out for a few minutes, letting myself use the twinge behind my knee as an excuse when it really wasn't. Abby picked up a few seconds on me, and then a few seconds more. By the time I got myself back into the game, I had run out of real estate to catch her. I finished in 2:22:09, with a 56:45 descent. Good enough for 42 place and 8 woman. Mile splits on the downhill: 8:33 (including our slight detour and course re-evaluation), 8:05, 7:53, 7:40, 8:37, 8:13, 7:28 (pace, last 0.42 miles). Race results here.

Almost at the finish (photo credit: Nora T.)

I think Pete sums things up best in the text he sent me at the end of pacing Cat at Bryce: "That f&%#ing sucked. Awesome course and totally worth it though." Totally stellar course, directed in a fun and professional fashion, with one of the best post-race spreads out there.  But it definitely sucked. Yogurt with fresh berries and granola, breakfast burritos and sandwiches with delicious salsa, fresh fruit, coffee, juice, water, and BEER (home brewed!) for breakfast after!


Some of the FoCo Crew, enjoying the summer heat in Laramie (photo credit: Nora T.)