Mud Fest it was! I had hoped to improve my 6th place in the Masters race from Guelph last year. Nope, 7th this time, and my time was 29:04. Looking back at the race yesterday, I feel like I’m in better shape than last year, and I would have run much quicker if it hadn’t been so dang wet. 7th place is okay though. I had 27:07 last year, and the conditions made for about 2 minute slower times this year, at least for some runners like me.
I really suck at running in sloppy conditions, whether it’s mud or a pile of wet snow. I think I’m too weak in my lower body – feels my stride and technique just collapses.
The course was just crazy muddy! Sink holes, and puddles 2 feet deep. It was just plain ugly. I know some runners love this stuff, and I don’t mind the dirty part – I just don’t run fast in conditions like these.
I took some photos for Senior Womens and Senior Mens races – will post them soon.
I missed watching the Junior races – I had to go inside to warm up my frozen feet.
Results
The 2011 XC Nationals Running Results have been posted on Athletics Canada’s website.
In the Womens race, Kendra Schaaf ran a hard, impressive race and nobody could stick with her. Megan Brown ran a great race as well, and there was bit of a gap to 3rd place.
1 Schaaf, Kendra 25:00 2 Brown, Megan A25:08 3 Pidhoresky, Dayna 25:47
The Men’s race had a fairly large group for a while, but last year’s winner Cam Levins put the hammer down after 2 laps, and he looked amazingly strong the whole way. He kept on pulling away from the rest of the field and won by a large margin. Very impressive.
You can see from these times how slow the course was. Last year, on a hillier course, Cam won in 29.25. This year, he had 32:04.
1 Levins, Cameron 32:04 2 Britt, Barry 32:49 3 Winter, Chris 32:51
