R and J in the USA

July 16, 2024

We’re starting to see a pattern. The Quarry Road Trails Summer Running Series 5K was the third evening trail run of our trip, and all three of them have been hot, hot, hot, and humid. These races must not have paid for the evening cooling add-on to their weather subscriptions.

In addition to possibly having the highest heat index of all our races thus far, it was the first race that didn’t provide water afterward. So instead of drinking cool water, we had to refresh ourselves post-race with sun-warmed van water. Though it was a bit tepid as a drink, it was still cool enough to feel good in our post-race outdoor shower. The mild ups and downs of van life sometimes run from the same faucet.

The course followed a ski trail through the woods and fields of a recreation area on the edge of Waterville, Maine. The area has hiking, running, and mountain biking in the summer, cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing in the winter, and hills year-round.

There was a series of short, steep ups and downs early in the race. They were not that high or long, but there was a bunch of them. It was a bit like running up and down ten flights of stairs in a row.

The middle part of the race was uneventful gravity-wise, but that downward pulling force popped back up on a soul-sucking quarter-mile long uphill late in the race. Had this been the only hill in the race, and had it come earlier, it would have been a normal kind of hard, as far as hills go. But because of the quad-shredding roller coaster hills early on, the 2.5 miles already run, and the high heat index, it was a little tougher to manage. It was also one of those hills that taunts you with a false summit before pitching up again to the actual crest. It was just mean.

With a field of only 28 runners, this was the smallest of our races so far. It was also among the slowest for both of us. We were both okay with our times, though, as we had decided ahead of time to treat the race as more of a jog than a run, given the high heat index.

In addition to being the smallest, slowest, and hottest, it was also the first race where we signed in in a yurt.

Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds

As previously mentioned, it was hot. Very, very hot. Ryan fared fairly well amidst the heat. Julie, not so much. The teeny field of runners started at the gun and Julie and Ryan started the race in a relaxed jog together somewhere in the 8:40s. Quite soon into mile one Julie felt the heat bearing down on her and just felt everything slow down and she relaxed into a mid nines pace while Ryan barreled steadily on.

By the time Ryan and Julie were deep into the aforementioned hills, Julie had slowed down to a 10:30 pace that she was WORKING to maintain. Her heart rate was steadily escalating through the race, landing on an average of 168 with much of the second half of the race hanging in the high 170s. At one point in the course there is a place where, as one is traveling on a flat part of the course they can see runner’s at a future point of the race running down a gradual hill perpendicular to their path. When Julie arrived at this flat point, she saw Ryan ahead of her descending down this hill. She was moving so slow through the oppressive heat and discomfort that Ryan appeared to be moving at a lightening speed. In a post-race debrief it turns out he was running at a fast but quite modest 8:30 pace at that time. That gives you a sense of how the race felt. The heat somehow made the whole world feel and look slow, so that anything moving at a somewhat reasonable pace seemed insanely fast.

Ryan maintained his “slow for him” pace for the bulk of the race and ended it feeling on the edge of overheating. Julie barely maintained her “very slow for her” pace for the bulk of the race and ended it feeling one toe into the process of overheating to the point where getting the outdoor shower going had some sense of urgency to it.

Despite the heat and the tiredness, the views were great and we enjoyed the particularly invigorating kind of punishment that such a race can bring. That said, we have no need to do it again.