CROSS-COUNTRY
SEASON
CROSS-COUNTRY
SEASONFall is such a great time for running. After the seemingly relentless heat waves of summer, each fall day seems to bring cooler and more pleasant running. How about those crisp, cold race-day mornings? Fall also brings the cross-country season. Each autumn, San Diego has about a half-dozen cross-country races on the docket and I try to get around to as many as possible. This year I ran three. If you want a first-rate cross-country experience, any of these races would provide it.
First was the SDTC Balboa Park 4-miler. Now here's one of my all-time favorite races. Everything about this race seems ideal: the beautiful setting on the western fringe of Balboa Park, the mixed roadway-sidewalk, grass-dirt trails course, the brisk competition and the 4-mile distance. Somehow, the park grounds-keepers always seem to have the grassy stretch in the first couple hundred yards at the start sopping wet, just to give each runner a pair of soggy wet shoes in which to race. Every time you run this race, that last hill coming out of the canyon seems worse than the time before. Don't miss it.
The Run for the Ribbon 5K toured the dirt perimeter road at Lake Poway. So you like hills? Do you enjoy charging up and down Powder Hill in Balboa Park? Here's the race for you! This race started going uphill. Then it got steeper...much steeper. Then after the summit, it went steeply downhill and then up another hill. Powder Hill would be nothing on this course.
Want to do some real heavy breathing in the first mile? Here's the place. A little after the the first mile, I silently gave thanks that these hills had come early, not late, in the race. Wrong. Then we reached the turn-around point and it was back through the same set of hills in reverse. Pure agony!
By the time we emerged from the lake perimeter road, I felt near death and longed for the swooping downhill run to the finish. Surprise! That part of the course wasn't repeated. No, we now went on a tour of the hills in the parking area for about a half-mile to stretch the course to the 5K distance. Talk about adding insult to injury!
Then there was the Dan Daly 10K held in the Camp Horno area of Camp Pendleton Marine Base. When you see "Camp Pendleton" and "cross country" on the same entry form, you can expect almost anything. How about gooey mud up over your shoe tops? How about long stretches of deep, ultra-soft sand or fast-flowing, chest-high water? All these and more have appeared on Camp Pendleton cross-country runs. The Dan Daly 10K was an exhausting loop tour of steeply rolling, rocky, sandy, rutted jeep trails. An "optional" water hazard was featured, but everyone in my part of the race wisely went around it.
Somehow, I always enjoy running with the marines. They're young, fit and energetic, to be sure, but most aren't used to running with older runners. Naturally, almost all go out much too fast. Then after a couple miles, I begin to methodically pass them. Well, they'll look over and see a man older than their father passing them. A marine doesn't take this lightly! No, the typical response is to throw in a huge surge and scamper well ahead. Of course, this constitutes a costly move in a race, and it's not long before that marine has been reeled back in. A few will simply give up. Very few. Most will surge again and again before finally succumbing to exhaustion. Some will manage to stay ahead all the way to the finish. They all end up, however, respecting the older runner and it always shows at the awards ceremony.
What is it about Marines that compels them to charge up hills? This course had a lot of short but steep hills. Well, I try to conserve my strength, but not the Marines. Oh no, on every hill five or six would charge by scrambling almost out of control as if to see who would reach the top first. Naturally, blowing that kind of energy makes them susceptible to getting passed on the downhill stretches (see above).
Finally, why can't the Marines lay out a course accurately? Almost every Camp Pendleton run is fouled up in one way or another. On this one, none of the mile markers were accurately located or evenly spaced and the course was a half-mile long. A half mile! Oh well, what if we didn't have anything to gripe about after the race? Actually, I would strongly recommend any cross-country race held on Camp Pendleton. Every one I've run has been great fun!
January 1993
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