2012 Bradbury Scuffle Race Report: A Day Late, A Dollar Short

There were a lot of successes at this year's Bradbury Scuffle. The event had its largest crowd ever - 171 people finished the race! Awesome! Ian and Ryan, as always, put on a great race and there were a lot of Trail Monster volunteers helping out. A ton of Trail Monsters ran great races, including Emma, who ran a fast fast race against some speedy women and came in 3rd, and my friend Amy, who despite being fearful of racing, rose to the challenge and finished standing and with a big smile on her face. Way to go, girls!!! :-)

And in amongst the successes, I was not. It just wasn't my day. I tried, for a few hours at least, to not be disappointed with the results, but let's be honest here, I am. I wanted to run better, faster. And I didn't.

The first person I saw when I pulled up to the registration table was Val, who immediately and worriedly said, "Danielle, are you ok? You look so tired." And I was tired. It had been a bit of a stressful week, and I guess it was showing. I tried to get my head into the game by going for a 1 mile warm-up by myself, but I am not sure it did much.

The large group lined up at the start, and after a moving tribute from Ian about his friend Chris, we all finagled into place and were off. I got a bit carried away on the downhill, and was probably moving a bit too quickly in that first mile. I soon fell back into what seemed like a more reasonable pace, and realized pretty quickly that I was going to have a bit of a rough go out there - the slow climb up the snowmobile trail felt a bit too tough for only a mile or so into the race. Still, I plugged on as best I could. It was hot and muggy. I felt like my legs didn't have any power, any strength in them, which I suppose isn't surprising given that I have not been running much and am only recently getting back into things about my month layoff. Man, that month killed a lot more of my fitness than I would ever have imagined! Coupled with a month of very low mileage and no running at the Brad at all this spring, and well, the Scuffle was just a bit more work than I would have liked! :-)

I leapfrogged with a few people on and off as we wound our way through the singletrack. I even stopped at the 3 mile aid station, something I would normally never do, in part because it was just so frickin' hot and well, because, I was tired :-) I got a bit of a second wind after that, but it wasn't enough.

As I headed down the snowmobile trail in the final 1 1/2 miles, I saw a familiar figure ahead. I finally caught up to Ryan right when my Garmin beeped 5 miles. I had picked up the pace to catch him, and wanted to try to keep up the momentum. I told him to come along. Together we grumbled and ran, and well, I don't know about him, but I certainly suffered up that final little climb. Somewhere along the way, Susan passed us, and then Bob caught us right at the end. Sigh. Oh well, they deserved it today! Definitely not my best effort. Ryan and I crossed the line together, in 53:57. Compared to last year that is slow as molasses, but it was fun to have a chance to run a bit with Ryan, and I think we were at least both smiling at the end. Suffering is better with a friend after all! :-)

So, not the best Scuffle in the books for me, but it does leave me with a bit of a fire in my belly to get out there and get in some more miles and gain back a bit more strength in my legs. Whether I'll have gotten up to speed by the Breaker remains to be seen, but I sure will be out there trying!