Empyrean Trail 10k Surprises

Having run the 5k race the past 2 years, I was very familiar with the first 5k of the trail terrain.
But the second half was completely unknown to me so that added some excitement and surprise along the way. I haven’t raced a lot of trail races: mainly 5ks or my 50k. This was my first trail 10k race.

2018 is the first year that the 10k was offered (this has been a 5k race up to now). There is also a one-mile race or for people who want a shorter option. Some race volunteers ran the mile and rushed back to support us with the finish and lunch.

The staggered start allowed us 10k runners to go first, the 5k launched a few minutes behind us. I don’t think the 5k runners really caught up to us.

Not wanting to set expectations too high, I set a goal of running this race in an hour or less. It was a realistic target glancing at my 5k finish times the past few years.

I like to run an easy mile warmup before races like this so that’s what I did to reacquaint myself with the first 1/2 mile and to find the 3 mile/6 mile combo marker. It’s a double loop course the way the course is designed.

If you run this course, you definitely want to wear trail shoes. And mine came untied. Yes both of them. Make sure your shoelaces are secure. I ran in Topo Athletic MT-2 (same as last year)and they performed well.

The first mile or so of the course is pretty easy with a slight incline. My first mile split was 8:00, slightly slower than I wanted but I was reserving energy in the tank for later. I made note of a cross atop a hill that we run across about a mile into the course as a milestone, we pass it on the way back within the first 5k.

The second mile was mostly downhill but we had to be cautious it was a little muddy in spots. My second mile split was 9:09.

The third mile is barely uphill but the challenge of uphill and downhill running can be felt by this point. My pace for this mile slowed to 10:02.

For the unpredictable second half, there were some things that went wrong. One was accidentally wandering off course (misread a boundary). Fortunately, someone noticed and called me back. It wasn’t too big a deviation but it added a little time. The shoelaces came untied in the second half.

For water, I carried it in my OrangeMud vest. It is so much easier to do that way. Water stops are about every 2 miles or so. I just didn’t want to have to stop.

As I trained to run this as a run-walk race, I did sprinkle in some walk breaks. Maybe 2:00 worth. And that kept my heart rate down for the most part. Most of the race was in heart rate zone 3.

The fourth mile of the race was the toughest: mud, logs, branches, snow, and steepest incline on the course. And my pace slipped here to 11:10. On unknown terrain with all these hazards plus having to jump or leap in a few places, it just slows us down a little bit. There was one crossing where someone was a little nervous about jumping across a water crossing. She was afraid of falling. But we encouraged and supported her and she finally jumped successfully.

It was interesting running in an empty riverbed (water was just so low) in one part of the course. There were some logs there we had to maneuver around.

By the fifth mile, I regained my second wind and pushed the pace back down to 9:04. One of my favorite parts of the course is somewhere in this mile where runners pass by each other and you can high-five your friends/family/other runners as they go by. It boosts the running camaraderie that is already so strong and makes it even stronger. It also makes it a more social race at least on that stretch.

Winding back to the finish, we could see some familiar terrain. I noticed one of the signs pointing us to the finish was misspelled and that made me laugh and chuckle. I snapped a picture of it. I’m not sure if they did that on purpose to make us laugh or not but it was effective either way.

The sixth mile was a tiny bit slower: 9:43 pace, it was downhill but we had to be careful in some places with mud.

Throughout the race, there is some narrow single-file climbing that just requires patience and persistence.

Zooming to the finish, I pushed the pace to try to keep it under 1 hour. The last .42 miles (yes because I wandered off course) was 7:21/mile pace.

And I was ecstatic when I noticed my Garmin said I finished in less than an hour. But the lady in front of me and I had a surprise when we got our chip times. Barely over an hour by seconds. She wasn’t happy either because I think she was aiming for 1:00 too.

But our disappointment quickly disappeared with a wonderful barbecue lunch and beer from Empyrean Brewing. I finished 5th in my age group (41-50) out of 16 so I was pleased with that. Chip time was 1:00:08.8. 32nd place out of 84 finishers. 9:41/mile pace per the chip.

And that’s not all, no there was one more big surprise. I purchased a $20 raffle ticket to win free beer for a year from Empyrean Brewing. And won! I was shocked. I’ll show you the picture so you know. I thanked the gentleman who sold me the winning ticket because I let him pick which ones I would get. Somehow he knew. Or so it seems.

Overall, it was a wonderful, challenging experience, one that I will treasure. And it was a success even though it was a tiny bit slower than my target. Live and learn.

I highly recommend this race for trail runners and their families. It’s a lot of fun. Some kids ran the 5k/10k too and did very well. You can find my BibRave race review of this race at BibRave.com. I gave the race 5 stars out of 5 in my BR review.

Happy healthy trails! Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy your time with your friends and families! Happy Easter and Happy Passover to my Jewish friends!