Today was the spring Soaring Eagle run, much different than the winter Soaring Eagle run which was cold but not wet for once. Today was pretty perfect with tens around 50 when the runs started and blue skies for the most part. I was originally planning to do the 5 at this event then decided to switch to the Half Marathon and then last night decided to go back to the 5 since I had run at Chirico on Wednesday morning and I’ve got Sun Mountain 25k coming up in three weeks.
Perfect Luna weather for once, no socks even needed, I think this was the first event I’ve been able to run w/o socks or Tabus though I did have to adjust my sandals to tighten up the straps to account for less bulk. I even got to wear shorts! After doing registration for the Marathon, 20-mile, Half Marathon and some of the 5 & 10 mile runners I headed to my car to change and got back to the start just in time to chat a bit before we lined up. I had forgotten my watch at home so had to time on the Movescount app on my iPhone today which was a drag so my recorded time is off since I started the clock about 15s before we began and didn’t stop the clock until I’d gotten through the whole finish chute and into the parking lot.
The course was the typical figure 8 that NW Trail Runs does at Soaring Eagle, I’ve run it many times now. I decided to stick with breathing through my nose the whole event and was amazed that I could keep an average 8:28 pace breathing totally through my nose. Again many people passed me on the way down the main pipeline trail and were breathing heavily through their mouths going into oxygen debt and I passed them again once we hit the single track. Part way I got into a good pace with Jay Grubb and one other guy in back of me and we just cruised along passing slower runners and sticking together in a small pack at a perfect pace for me. Once we came back out on the pipeline trail at the end I picked it up and passed Jay who was doing 10-miles and pushed into the finish. I clocked the event at 44:11 so it was probably more like 43:40 and 5.21 miles, we’ll see what it really was when the results come in. This was not my fastest Soaring Eagle time which was 41:34 but still way better than all my old times of 46-55 minutes.
Next up is Sun Mountain 25k on May 22nd though I may run the 5.1 at Cougar on the 14th since I don’t have to work those events and it is close to the house. I’ll be missing the next few Northwest Trail events since they are in Cle Elum and Teanaway and will take up a whole day to go to them.