Sunday Sept 21st was the yearly Grouse Grind Mountain Run. My results: 35:35 resulting in 37th overall and 5th/90 in the 40-49 age group. http://www.raceheadquarters.com/results/2008/run/GrouseGrind2008.html. Interestingly, good enough for 3rd in 30-39. Note that because the race end is above the chalet and the start is in the parking lot, race results are about 1:40 higher than "normal" grouse grind times to the rocks and about 60 seconds higher than the summit seeker times. My 35:35 race time was also 33:55 "normal" grind time.
Good and Bad from my perspective. That's 10 seconds slower than last year. 35 minutes is a great grind time, but I trained really hard to try to drop 60-75 seconds from last years time. I kept my body weight about 10lbs lower this past year, did more running, and did more personal training sessions. I did the BCMC trail once a week starting Jan 2nd. I even did a run + workout at the top of Whistler to do some altitude training. All this resulted in a race weight of 169 compared to 176 last year. I wasn't nearly as worried about weight this year and I didn't cut back that much on the extras this year. One downside was that I couldn't do as much hiking with the kids this year because I had a knee injury from April to June. I did have one training run that at 33:15 was 45 seconds faster than my fastest training run last year so I had hopes of doing much better. I just never seemed to have that "jump" that I needed. And on race day I felt in a fog. I definitely worked as hard as I could as I had to lie down and breathe like a fiend for 5 minutes right after the race. So great training, maximal effort, just not quite the result I'd hoped for but a decent result nonetheless.
As it turns out, even if I'd got the 60-75 seconds off that I wanted, I'd still have placed 5th in my age group. Greg Sullivan, who won 40s last year with 34:37, came in with 34:07 and finished 4th. Last year 3 guys were in the 34s, this year 3 guys were in the 33s! Looks like a 39 year old last year got a minute faster, another 40s guy got a minute faster, and somebody else just showed up with a 33 minuter. So the nice thing is that I didn't miss placing because of a so-so race day as I never had a chance at doing <33:49.
Now will I try again this hard next year? I'm not sure yet. I can't really do much more from a training perspective, and I'll probably be a bit busier with work next year :-). I will keep going hard on the grind during the fall to see if the cooler temperatures can help me get into the 32s.
Good and Bad from my perspective. That's 10 seconds slower than last year. 35 minutes is a great grind time, but I trained really hard to try to drop 60-75 seconds from last years time. I kept my body weight about 10lbs lower this past year, did more running, and did more personal training sessions. I did the BCMC trail once a week starting Jan 2nd. I even did a run + workout at the top of Whistler to do some altitude training. All this resulted in a race weight of 169 compared to 176 last year. I wasn't nearly as worried about weight this year and I didn't cut back that much on the extras this year. One downside was that I couldn't do as much hiking with the kids this year because I had a knee injury from April to June. I did have one training run that at 33:15 was 45 seconds faster than my fastest training run last year so I had hopes of doing much better. I just never seemed to have that "jump" that I needed. And on race day I felt in a fog. I definitely worked as hard as I could as I had to lie down and breathe like a fiend for 5 minutes right after the race. So great training, maximal effort, just not quite the result I'd hoped for but a decent result nonetheless.
As it turns out, even if I'd got the 60-75 seconds off that I wanted, I'd still have placed 5th in my age group. Greg Sullivan, who won 40s last year with 34:37, came in with 34:07 and finished 4th. Last year 3 guys were in the 34s, this year 3 guys were in the 33s! Looks like a 39 year old last year got a minute faster, another 40s guy got a minute faster, and somebody else just showed up with a 33 minuter. So the nice thing is that I didn't miss placing because of a so-so race day as I never had a chance at doing <33:49.
Now will I try again this hard next year? I'm not sure yet. I can't really do much more from a training perspective, and I'll probably be a bit busier with work next year :-). I will keep going hard on the grind during the fall to see if the cooler temperatures can help me get into the 32s.
Leave a comment