Andrew Schrauben

The Road End Trail Run is a 5-mile race in the Pinckney Recreation Area outside Ann Arbor, MI. This event is just the opening act for the Trail Marathon weekend; Road Ends runs on Saturday and Sunday hosts a trail marathon and half-marathon at the same location.

Leading up to this race, the recovery from an achilles injury forced me to run just twice in the ten days prior to race day for a total of seven miles. Fortunately my conservatism paid off as my leg felt great on race day and I had no problems with any recurrence. Nevertheless, I was unsure how fast I could run given my lack of recent training and had difficultly coming up with a goal for the race. I had heard the course was quite hilly so I figured I'd be happy if I could maintain an 8:00 pace, i.e. finish the race in 40 minutes.

My dad, mom and Amanda were nice enough to come along as spectators, or maybe they just wanted to see me suffer! We hiked around the starting area and checked out some ducks and a loon out on Silver Lake using dad's binoculars. Finally it was time to assemble at the line and 259 folks packed together, eager to get moving so we could warm up! It was a cool, overcast morning at about 45 degrees. The race director informed us that mile markers 2 and 4 were quite accurate, but the markers for miles 1 and 3 were just "there for consistency". I chatted with a volunteer and a racer a bit while waiting and learned that the racer had just run the Boston Marathon two weeks earlier and the volunteer was going to do a 50-mile race in Colorado next week! Fun stuff.

Ready, set, GO!! We looped around a grassy area to thin the pack before converging on a narrow boardwalk through a marshy area. My plan was to run hard and see how long I could keep it up since I had no idea 1) what my fitness level was and 2) what my pace would be until two miles later. Initially I felt pretty good - one of the benefits of a long layoff is complete muscle recovery - and passed the 2-mile marker in 14:40, a 7:20 pace! My last 5K I ran at a 6:50 pace so maybe 7:20 over 5 miles is doable?

Maybe not... soon after the 2 mile mark I realized that my stride rate (e.g. steps per minute) was rather low, but when I tried to quicken up my leg turnover I was disappointed to learn that my legs wouldn't respond. Apparently this is one of the effects of the lost training time, that my leg speed just wasn't there. This hurt me on the flats since I couldn't accelerate and also on the hills because I couldn't "downshift" to maintain momentum going up.

The next two miles I was really hurting - my lungs felt OK and my legs weren't sore but I simply couldn't make my legs "go" - they felt "hollow" if that makes any sense. Halfway up a large hill I was actually forced to walk and felt rather embarrassed; after all, who am I to think I can run a 8:00 pace yet have to walk? At the top I found myself breathing rapidly as if at high altitude, yet within five seconds I was running again and feeling rather normal (at least, as normal as one can feel in a race). It seemed so silly that I had to walk up that hill yet could resume my race pace once at the top without a problem.

Less than a mile later on a smaller hill I had to walk again! Dang! Once again my lungs were fine once over the top so all I can reason is that my lack of training caused me to lose my running "power" - my stamina was there, my strength was there, but my legs wouldn't accelerate. This time I had a happier attitude while walking - I told myself that lots of runners both behind me and ahead of me had seen me walking up both hills, and I was going to beat most of them! So who cares if I walk? See you at the finish line, bubbas.

Finally I reached the 4-mile mark at 32:00... yikes! My last two miles had been at a 8:40 pace and now I had to run a 8:00 final mile to reach my 40-minute goal. I remained positive yet realized that this was going to be difficult - I had to push the pace and NOT LET UP for the next eight minutes. My legs still felt hollow and all I could fill them with was will power.

At long last I crested the final short hill and the finish line was in sight about 100 yards away; also in sight was another runner 30 yards ahead of me and I started my kick to chase him down. I quickly gained 10 yards on him but then he heard my labored breathing. My dad told me later that this guy looked over his shoulder and his eyes got wide; this guy had last passed me when I was walking up the second hill, so he must've been surprised to see me on his tail! He kicked into a sprint and all I could do was match his pace and wasn't able to overtake him.

That's OK - I was THRILLED because I finished in 39:45!! Somehow I toughed out a 7:45 final mile and the photos Amanda took really show the strain I was feeling. Boy oh boy. But as you can see in the last photo, it was all worth it and in fact quite satisfying to know that I wasn't at my best and I still managed a good run. Learning how my body responded to the injury recovery and lack of training was also quite enlightening. And of course, a post-race poppyseed muffin really hit the spot!

We stuck around for the award ceremony because I wanted to see who the winners were. The overall winner finished in under 29 minutes! Wow. Then they started awarding prizes to the top five runners in each age group. Names were called out and when they got to my age group I was stunned to hear the race director call my name! Holy cow, I finished 5th in my age group (out of 14) and won a coffee mug. Even though I know it's petty, it's still fun to win a prize at a race by actually being fast enough rather than a random drawing. :) Overall I finished 49th out of 259, and yes I'm quite pleased with that. Best of all, however, was being my 40 minute goal by running that last mile as hard as I did - nothing beats that feeling of achievement!