Bear Water 20 Mile - September 12, 2015

This was my third running of the Bear Water 20 Mile and the second consecutive year that I've run it.  It was a beautiful morning for a run - 50 degrees, sunny, with light winds.  Bear Water is my final race before next month's Twin Cities Marathon.  I've completed two recent 20 mile training runs, so this will be my third 20 mile run in preparation for the marathon.  Same approach I took last year.

Participation in this race seems to be dropping a little bit each year.  Today's race included about 350 finishers.  There aren't a great number of long distance race options to choose from in the area this time of year, but I wish the race was a bit larger participation wise.  What happens in these smaller long distance races is that runners quickly begin to develop large gaps between each other, making it feel more like an individual training run, rather than a competitive race.  I ran most of this race by myself without seeing much of the other runners.  I find it so much harder to push and maintain beyond my comfort zone for miles on end without some competition pushing me.  

Muscle cramping is something I rarely experience in my races, but around the 5 mile mark, my left calf muscle began to knot up.  I thought I could work through it as the race progressed, but no luck.  The discomfort stuck with me the remainder of the way, which added even more difficulty to maintaining my pace.  I went into the race hoping to run a 7:15 mile pace (ran 7:19 pace last year).  I reached the 10 mile mark in reasonably good shape (7:17 pace), but began to slowly fade over the last 10 miles.    

The slow fade turned into an empty tank, as my pace slowed to 8 minute miles for several of the final 5 miles.  I finished with a time of 2:29:44, good for 18th place overall among 365 finishers and 3rd in my 10 year age group of 38 finishers.  That doesn't sound too bad, but my overall time was 5 minutes slower than last year, as I ran my last 10 miles about 30 seconds per mile slower than my first 10.  I was completely gassed over the final 5 miles.  I found this a bit alarming to say the least, as my training mileage is right on par with last year, but last year I ran more long distance races during the season compared to this year.  Ultimately I think that explains part of my demise today.  

With the Twin Cities Marathon just 3 weeks away, today's performance was not exactly a confidence builder.  I'm hoping it was just one of those races which I can put behind me and forget about.  Always exciting to look forward to the upcoming marathon as the peak event of my race season each year.  Hopefully I can shake off today's performance and put it all together in 3 weeks.

Race results:
http://www.mtecresults.com/race/show/3476/2015_Bear_Water_Run-20_Mile