Team WinS Sponsored Athlete
Sabrina Schreibeis
OLD GABE
Distance: 16 miles Time: 3:31 Place: 1st for women 4th overall
The course was an out and back on the middle Cottonwood and Sypes trails. The
first part was a continuous uphill with a rewarding down hill after several
miles. As I was happily running down to complete the first half, it hit
me that I was about to have to turn around and run right back up. The
thought alone was exhausting. As I neared the turn around point I
was shocked to find only three men in front of me. I was motivated by this,
but at the same time I was about out of energy, and immediately began playing
mind games and listing all my excuses. As I continued to quickly
fatigue I couldn’t decide if my walk or run was faster, even on the near
level portions of the trail my legs were becoming extraordinarily heavy. I
was definitely no longer capable of running up a hill – what I had considered
a slight slope at the beginning of the race – now seemed much too steep
to attempt to run.
At last I reached the top and was pleased to have only given one place
away, which I re-claimed on the downhill. I was racing down trying
to pace myself for the remainder of the race when I remembered hearing
rumors of having to turn and go UP middle Cottonwood for a few more miles
before I got to go down. This simply must be false. But my
fears were confirmed as a big fat sign pointed me up the middle cottonwood
trail. I was sure that I had absolutely no energy to continue as another
man passed me and one more was right behind me. But there was a man
with in reach on the trail in front of me and I kept pushing until I was
back in my 4th place position.
It felt great to push myself so hard and test my limits. At the half
way point I was ready to be done but had another 8+ miles to go. I
did not have experience to run this distance since the longest race I have
participated in was 10 miles. I have never worked so hard during
a race and hope that I can challenge myself to that level in future races.
Jim Bridger
Distance: 10 miles Time:2:06 Place: 73rd overall, 7th age group
I woke up late to the sound of my friend calling me as she waited for
me on my porch. As we sped to our race we were promptly pulled over
by Deputy Earl for speeding. The start of the day was an appropriate
foreshadowing of the race to come.
As the gun went off, I was unsure of the dramatically fast pace I had put
into effect, doubting it was a realistic 10 mile pace up and down mountains. As
soon as I reached the first upward slope my pace immediately slowed to
a plod and I glued my eyes to the heels of the man in front of me. Suddenly
he came to a stop as we realized we were on the opposite side of the creek
from the others. Apparently we had missed the creek crossing and
now needed to backtrack. I decided I should quit acting like a ol
pack horse with his nose glued to the tail in front of him. As I
shuffled to the front, I didn't notice the trail split. Oblivious
to my mis-step, and leading several people behind me off course, we continued
on until we reached several girls who had paused to question the route
but used us as confirmation that it was the right trail. As the trail
got emptier, with only myself and one other girl left, we finally realized
we had taken a wrong turn. Twenty minutes later we were dead last
but back on the right trail.
At this point the competitive edge had left and we thoroughly enjoyed the
trail. We had fun splashing through the trail which was a bit of
everything, mud, slush, snow, and water. The weather was just right,
and the surroundings were beautiful. Before we knew it we were back
in the race again with other runners around us!
The last part of the race was mostly downhill. Rarely did I stay
in the track and even had a minor wreak. The lady behind me let out
a scream for me, but it must have looked worse than it was as I immediately
bounced back to my feet and kept running.
I
truly enjoyed the race even though I got off to a late start, got pulled over,
got lost twice, fell, and got a sun burn. Really!
RIDGE RUN
Distance: 20 miles Time 4:38 Place: 7th overall for women, 3rd age group
I did it. Ran the ridge run! 20 miles either up (6800)
or down (9500)!!! I was very nervous for the race. I woke up
every hour the night before, and remained anxious until: 'ready set go!'. I
was instantly relieved to finally be running instead of thinking about
running. I was worried about completely running out of energy more than
anything. 20 miles seems like a long far away distance to me and
I wasn’t sure how to pace myself. I also was concerned how well I
would do eating and drinking, but my 4 bites of food seemed to sustain
my energy level quite well. The first 10 miles went by fast with
the beautiful scenery, the nice weather, and the trail required your attention.
It was a single track the entire way except for when it dissolved into
a rock pile. Sometimes these rock piles required four limbs to scramble
over. The trail was very narrow and the terrain was difficult - sharp
loose shale everywhere with large rock obstacles everywhere else usually
with a cliff like drop off in the near vicinity. Every time
someone wanted to pass, they had to request that the person in front of
them step to the side to let them by.
I tried to mentally prepare myself for lots of up hill - but there was
still a considerable amount more than expected and the incline was also
more intense than presumed. I was hoping to gain time on the down hills
but i didn't have the strength and agility to accommodate the steepness & difficulty
of the terrain so I had to rely on the up hills. Probably the most difficult
part of the race for me was when I psyched myself out. I passed a
girl who then decided to keep up with me for 5 or so miles. I did
not like this. I kept trying to make myself go faster to get away
from her but then she'd sneak right back up on me! (my personal space zone
is 15' in races)
I felt that I ran a good race. I forced myself to conserve energy
at the beginning, and challenge myself to push the second half. I
felt good during the race and exhausted enough after to know I made a solid
effort.
JOHN COLTER
Distance: 7 miles Time: 1:1:53 Place: 72nd overall
I guess
after running a 10, 16 and 20 mile race, 7 sounded easy. Ooops. I
forgot how fast people run! After completing the Ridge Run, I felt
that I deserved to slack, or as I prefer, ‘to rest’. As the race
neared, I decided I better go on a test run and make sure everything still
worked. On my two mile run I discovered that I could still run, but
only with frequent rest stops due to side aches.
On race
day, I started too fast and was glad to reach the first hill so I had a double
excuse to start walking. I spent most of the race recovering from my
overly optimistic starting pace and then was the first person to get stopped
to let a train pass. I missed my goal of breaking the 60 minute mark,
and would like to blame it on the train that I had to wait for, but really
need to dedicate myself to training prior to my next race. As always
it was a fun race with its river crossing right before your sprint to the end
that I did enjoy.
