I guess I first need to introduce myself since I haven’t met many of you yet but I’m sure I will soon. My name’s Max and this is my first Montrail blog entry…so go easy on the writing critique. I’m an engineer. And come find me at a race this year, I love to talk running and training and shoes.
Race Report from Hagg Lake 50k
This past weekend Sean Meissner (aka the Mayor of Oregon Ultra..I’ll explain later) and I traveled from sunny and dry Central Oregon to the other side of the Cascade Range to frolic in the Portland mud at the Hagg Lake 50k. This was my first opportunity to don the Montrail Ultrarunning Team jersey and I have to say, it felt good to be part of a larger team and to know you have team members for support just about any race you go to. Sure running is primarily and individual sport but I’ve always enjoyed being part of a team when I’m competing so it’s nice to find that in ultra running there’s a strong supportive community of runners. It’s nice to have great gear from Montrail and Mountain Hardwear too. The new Montrail lightweight racers performed awesome! Plug!
So back to the race report. We couldn’t have asked for a better day. Cool and sunny with a high near 50F, some mud on the trail to make it fun, (although everyone tells me it was a dry, fast year and I (and everyone else) still came out looking like we came straight from a mud wrestling competition), and great trails to run.
Sean decided to work on his leg speed this year and entered the 25k. Starting an hour after the 50k and finishing way before the 50k somehow seems unfair. Sean ran a great race he was happy with for 4th place in 1:46:10. By the time I finished the 50k he was already washed off and working on his Terminator Stout we picked up the night before for a post race celebratory picnic.
I, along with Andy Martin, our compatriot that made the trip with us and a decent runner himself, opted for the 50k as a tune up/workout for our upcoming ultra season. I wanted this race to be a good test of my fitness with WTC and AR50 coming up and I also had some unfinished torture on myself from last weekend where I raced like a 10yr old schoolboy with a blister (slowly, and no offense to school children intended) at the Cross Country National Champs in Spokane. It was a disappointing race to say the least, but in hindsight I came away learning that training for both ultras and xc races don’t always overlap very well. This will be the first time in the last four years that I haven’t made it onto the US world champs team, but as a consolation prize I did come away with a trip to Tobago next week for the NACAC Championships. Tropical vacat…I mean a race in hot, adverse conditions will be good for me.
Andy, Rueben Galbraith, and I ran a solid 13 miles together until we split up and went at it alone the rest of the way. I pushed through the middle section of the race pretty hard and came away feeling pretty good about the race and my fitness (now I’m giving all my secrets away to Geoff before WTC) finishing in a solid 3:27 with Andy a few minutes back in second. We were pretty lucky to get such a great day and man, it’s fun to run through the mud like a kid again. We stuck around a few hours after to enjoy the day and some good company and even if we’d wanted to leave Andy and I didn’t have a choice because Sean proceeded to have an in-depth conversation with everyone at the race. Thus the Mayor of Oregon Ultra. Now I know what my wife feels like when I drag her to an xc race and she can’t drag me away.
Max
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Max says “…finishing in a solid 3:27 with Andy a few minutes back in second.” First off, his official time was 3:26:54, but that’s not too far off. The rest of that statement is way off. With all due respect to Andy (who is a friend of mine), Max crushed the field, with Andy 15 min. back (also under the old course record). A little background on Andy – he’s fast. He’s run in the Olympic Marathon Trials and holds many of the local Bend-area course records, races that Max has also run. They have a great little rivalry going, and coincidentally, both are moving up to race more ultras this year. It’s great to see more runners of their caliber stepping up in distance!
And regarding Max’s comments about me being the Mayor of OR Ultra – he’s just jealous that I have a cute pink Orcas Island 50k vest and he doesn’t.
Congrats on a stellar performance! Looking forward to see what other damage you can inflict upon the course records you face throughout the season!
Congrats to Andy as well, rumor has it that we might see him at Chuckanut 50k in a few weeks time…pretty sure he’ll be the pre-race favorite there!
GR
Wow – just amazing results guys.!
Congrats you fast guys!
I am enjoying reading about the competitive and supportive running and bantering going on out there! Whoopp, whoop! Seriously, good job-and Max-you do a fine job holding a readers attention for a blog post-thank you!
Sean, Thanks for pointing out the 15 minute spread. You should be ashamed of yourself! It was only 14:59 and I was crawling through the mud on hands and knees for goodness sake!
Gary, thanks for the confidence you’ve shown in my abilities but there are a bunch of big boys coming to Chuckanut. I’m just hoping to hold off the Canucks!
Max, Congrats! Enjoy it while you can…you know if I had a pair of the Montrail flats it would have been an even race.