Tinajas trail half marathon 2021 race report.
(I just realized I never cross-posted our race report from Swimrun NC here, so.. now I have!)
We're officially in swimrun off-season, which.. doesn't seem to have really changed our schedule in Training Peaks all that much. Still running, still swimming, but maybe doing less quality? Though some longer swims, too, which is kinda fun.
Anyway, Trista had a prior obligation to pace her friend Jeff through the last 20 miles of his 100 miler this weekend at Devil Dog, and I knew that I was going to have some FOMO listening to those stories and looking at those photos/videos. So I looked at the trail schedule here in central Texas, and found the Tinajas trail run was going to be the same weekend. Mostly it's longer distances (up to 100), but their "fun run" was a trail half marathon, which is a distance I could conceivably do without dying!
I headed out to Colorado Bend State Park early Saturday morning. I thought I had been out there before, but I was thinking of Muleshoe. Turns out, never been to CB! Exciting to run a whole new trail. But unfortunately far away. Almost 2 hours to get to the park, and then almost 6 miles of driving 20mph max in very thick fog through the park proper to find the start line.
Tejas Trails is still doing non-mass starts, where you sign up for a start time, and I ended up starting just before my 8am start time, completely alone, and that's how I remained for pretty much the whole run. Maybe 7 people passed me, and I passed one person, and otherwise I saw nobody. Not even at the aid stations, because this race has no manned aid stations. There were 3 aid stations that had water for the half marathon, and I stopped at two of those to refill. Every aid station was accessible, though, from the road, so the ultra folks could drop bags at every aid station so they'd have their own supplies. I liked that system.
I didn't know much about the trail out there, and it turned out to be more technical than I would have guessed. It starts out crossing a little stream over and over and over, and it was super slippery on the steep banks, so LOTS of walking through there, and then splashing through the shallow stream water. Also very headsup racing through there, because often our race didn't go on the established trail, so you'd just blindly follow the trail and then realize the flags had you go up into the trees randomly or across unmarked rocks.
Then lots more up on very rocky trails, then back down same. It was the kind of rocks that are sharp and pointy and buried in the ground, so you can't really run on them, you have to avoid them completely. Lots of dancing, lots of walking.
The course was super well marked. We were all running roughly the same trail, except it would split off for the longer distances and the half marathon. I was never in danger of going the wrong way for the shorter distance, even though there were maybe 6 different times I split off. Great job by whoever marked the trail.
After going up and up and down and down on the way out, the course turns and comes back down along the river. I was looking forward to that part, and maybe taking some pictures (pain in the ass to do when I carry my phone in the back pocket of my hydration pack). Unfortunately this part.. was not pretty. The river was low and scungey and brown and just not attractive at all. So no pictures! This part WAS super runnable, though. Flat and not rocky, a very nice trail. A couple cliff areas where the trail was super narrow and one place with a chain to hold onto it was so sketchy, but mostly a nice opportunity to actually just run for a while.
Then it cuts a sharp right back up another pass to head back to the start line for the last few miles.
This part got rocky and technical again. I felt fine. I had done a 2 hour trail run a couple times lately, and last week I did a 2 hour road run that got me 12 miles. I wasn't undertrained. But man, the last few miles, I tripped over every single rock out there. It was SUPER frustrating. I remember this happened to me at Wild Hare once, too, except there's a lot fewer rocks at Wild Hare. Normally I hook my toe on a rock, I berate myself to pay attention and not be dumb so close to the end, and then I get better. I was tripping over rocks every 30 seconds or so, and I just couldn't stop. Mostly it was just a slight toe hook and not a major threat of falling, but I even had one major trip on a downhill that was almost disastrous. I twisted my back and my hamstring and made a terrible feral grunting noise as I expected to hit the ground, but somehow I recovered. And even that wasn't enough to make me stop tripping over rocks. It continued until I got to the last mile, which was mostly the trail we'd run in on, which was a "family friendly" trail, flat and smooth and kind with labels on the trees and notes about potential wild animals.
So I dunno what that was about, but it was very frustrating. And I'm very glad that, even though I tripped a lot, I never fell, and I never injured myself or made anything worse.
In fact, for all the crappy weather and longest run I've done for a while, both distance-wise and time-wise (it took me 3:09 to run a half marathon, so.. it was not fast), I felt okay afterward, and wasn't at all sore later that day or the next day. (Which is good, because Sunday had me swimming 5400 yards in the pool. Oof.)
So I'm glad I did it. Long drive out there, felt like an even longer drive back (though at least it was light and there was no thick fog), it was lonely running alone, and it was a tough course in crap weather. But it was nice to do a supported trail run again, and run somewhere new. Hopefully next time I go out there, Matt can go with me.
We're officially in swimrun off-season, which.. doesn't seem to have really changed our schedule in Training Peaks all that much. Still running, still swimming, but maybe doing less quality? Though some longer swims, too, which is kinda fun.
Anyway, Trista had a prior obligation to pace her friend Jeff through the last 20 miles of his 100 miler this weekend at Devil Dog, and I knew that I was going to have some FOMO listening to those stories and looking at those photos/videos. So I looked at the trail schedule here in central Texas, and found the Tinajas trail run was going to be the same weekend. Mostly it's longer distances (up to 100), but their "fun run" was a trail half marathon, which is a distance I could conceivably do without dying!
I headed out to Colorado Bend State Park early Saturday morning. I thought I had been out there before, but I was thinking of Muleshoe. Turns out, never been to CB! Exciting to run a whole new trail. But unfortunately far away. Almost 2 hours to get to the park, and then almost 6 miles of driving 20mph max in very thick fog through the park proper to find the start line.
Tejas Trails is still doing non-mass starts, where you sign up for a start time, and I ended up starting just before my 8am start time, completely alone, and that's how I remained for pretty much the whole run. Maybe 7 people passed me, and I passed one person, and otherwise I saw nobody. Not even at the aid stations, because this race has no manned aid stations. There were 3 aid stations that had water for the half marathon, and I stopped at two of those to refill. Every aid station was accessible, though, from the road, so the ultra folks could drop bags at every aid station so they'd have their own supplies. I liked that system.
I didn't know much about the trail out there, and it turned out to be more technical than I would have guessed. It starts out crossing a little stream over and over and over, and it was super slippery on the steep banks, so LOTS of walking through there, and then splashing through the shallow stream water. Also very headsup racing through there, because often our race didn't go on the established trail, so you'd just blindly follow the trail and then realize the flags had you go up into the trees randomly or across unmarked rocks.
Then lots more up on very rocky trails, then back down same. It was the kind of rocks that are sharp and pointy and buried in the ground, so you can't really run on them, you have to avoid them completely. Lots of dancing, lots of walking.
The course was super well marked. We were all running roughly the same trail, except it would split off for the longer distances and the half marathon. I was never in danger of going the wrong way for the shorter distance, even though there were maybe 6 different times I split off. Great job by whoever marked the trail.
After going up and up and down and down on the way out, the course turns and comes back down along the river. I was looking forward to that part, and maybe taking some pictures (pain in the ass to do when I carry my phone in the back pocket of my hydration pack). Unfortunately this part.. was not pretty. The river was low and scungey and brown and just not attractive at all. So no pictures! This part WAS super runnable, though. Flat and not rocky, a very nice trail. A couple cliff areas where the trail was super narrow and one place with a chain to hold onto it was so sketchy, but mostly a nice opportunity to actually just run for a while.
Then it cuts a sharp right back up another pass to head back to the start line for the last few miles.
This part got rocky and technical again. I felt fine. I had done a 2 hour trail run a couple times lately, and last week I did a 2 hour road run that got me 12 miles. I wasn't undertrained. But man, the last few miles, I tripped over every single rock out there. It was SUPER frustrating. I remember this happened to me at Wild Hare once, too, except there's a lot fewer rocks at Wild Hare. Normally I hook my toe on a rock, I berate myself to pay attention and not be dumb so close to the end, and then I get better. I was tripping over rocks every 30 seconds or so, and I just couldn't stop. Mostly it was just a slight toe hook and not a major threat of falling, but I even had one major trip on a downhill that was almost disastrous. I twisted my back and my hamstring and made a terrible feral grunting noise as I expected to hit the ground, but somehow I recovered. And even that wasn't enough to make me stop tripping over rocks. It continued until I got to the last mile, which was mostly the trail we'd run in on, which was a "family friendly" trail, flat and smooth and kind with labels on the trees and notes about potential wild animals.
So I dunno what that was about, but it was very frustrating. And I'm very glad that, even though I tripped a lot, I never fell, and I never injured myself or made anything worse.
In fact, for all the crappy weather and longest run I've done for a while, both distance-wise and time-wise (it took me 3:09 to run a half marathon, so.. it was not fast), I felt okay afterward, and wasn't at all sore later that day or the next day. (Which is good, because Sunday had me swimming 5400 yards in the pool. Oof.)
So I'm glad I did it. Long drive out there, felt like an even longer drive back (though at least it was light and there was no thick fog), it was lonely running alone, and it was a tough course in crap weather. But it was nice to do a supported trail run again, and run somewhere new. Hopefully next time I go out there, Matt can go with me.