Cranmore Hill Climb

"There's no lightning." - Dave Dunham

Cranmore had the most inauspicious beginning of any mountain race thus far. After slipping out of the Lodge at 6 A.M. like a thief in the night, I drove over from Moosilauke to North Conway. I had a bit of an upset stomach, and took a half hour nap before the start. After a small drizzle woke me up, I congregated inside with the other runners. The small drizzle became a torrential downpour, and then a thunderstorm. About five minutes after the scheduled start, Dave Dunham herded us outside -- and we were off!

I started off with a rather moderate pace, which nonetheless put me scarily close to the front pack at first. After dropping back a bit, I continued to slog uphill. I actually walked a few sections, mainly because it was at least as fast and because getting traction on the mud and wet grass was "interesting." I felt OK coming off the first uphill lap, and ran the downhill essentially conservatively -- I was pretty worried about hurting my right ankle after I sprained it in the Fells last Wednesday. It went pretty smoothly, and I went into the second uphill lap feeling rather wet and beaten-up. I struggled for most of the uphill to fend off an older guy, but finally pulled away on the approach to the top. One of the things that made it tough was that I couldn't switch which muscles I was using (On a road course, you can cycle between different strides to minimize fatigue).

"You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind." - Morpheus

I took the first half of the downhill similarly conservatively, but then really went kind of crazy for the last half mile. It started off with an extremely muddy and uneven section in the woods where I passed one guy, and continued with a long pounding downhill to the finish. I was operating at the limits of my muscles, visual ability, focus, breathing capacity, and general coordination. A single mistake would probably have injured me rather badly, but I lucked out and just felt amazingly awesome instead. I finished 12th out of 140 with a time of 1:01:52. I then drank some Gatorade and proceeded to feel like the race had punched me below the belt.

I'll hopefully have some photos and such up soon, but here's the course map for now: