Hobbs Island 10K! Always a Good Time.

Hobbs Island 10K 

The Hobbs Island 10K is quickly becoming one of my favorite races.  It's wedged between the Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning, and the Rocket City Marathon, two weeks later.  It seems the 10K distance is becoming an endangered species in the running community, giving way to a plethora of 5Ks.  That's why this race is all the more special.  My friend Martin Schneekloth is the Race Director; he transformed the Huntsville Track Club's (HTC) scholarship fundraiser into a new distance. I recall, in the past, it was an 8K.  The race also has a new location. It's been moved from Downtown Huntsville, to Ditto Landing, on the Tennessee River. Martin may have had some help with the distance and location from the Track Club, but nonetheless, the outcome is one great race.  It's going on its 3rd year.  

I've ran each of the three years.  The course changed after the first year, due to some conflicts with the Huntsville Police Department.  I think it was a public safety issue. Sections of the race were run on roads that were not closed off, this caused the HPD to have understandable concerns. Also, I recall there was a staffing issue.  Given that the race falls on a Holiday weekend, I think it was straining HPD resources.   

Anyway, it all worked out for the best.  While the HPD still supports the race, it doesn't require as much manpower and the new course is flat and fast.  However, I can't explain how my course PR was set on the old course which had a sizable climb about halfway through.  I'll chalk it up to younger legs.

(Early into the race.)

It's a incredibly scenic race, taking you down and back on the Aldridge Creek Greenway and then circling by the Tennessee River.  I couldn't appreciate all of the views, because I was sucking wind for most of the race.

Somewhere around mile 4, I got my second wind and had negative splits for miles 5 and 6. Although it was a cold start, I'm glad I ditched my jacket before the start of the race.  Many runners dressed for the cold start, and I think they started melting around mile 3. I've learned the hard way that it's better to freeze at the start of a race, rather than overdressing and turning your clothes into a mini sauna.

(Crossing the finish line, with this nice couple.  They kind of made me feel bad because they were racing with hydration packs on, and I still could not seem to pass them. :/ )

One great aspect of  Hobbs Island is to be able to hang out at the finish line and congratulate runners as they cross the line.  If you haven't given this race a shot, I would highly recommend it.  It's well organized and the door prizes are over the top.

I've never received one. Hint, Hint.


My Times

2015: 48:16:00
2016: 51:16:67 (too much Thanksgiving leftovers)
2017: 48:46:07 (30 seconds off my PR)
                

A Rough Dizzy 50K and My Hopes for Becoming the Hulk are Dashed

The Dizzy Fifties 50K 2017

A New Course

I will get to the Hulk story in a bit, but I will start with my history at the Dizzy 50's.  I've toed the line at this race five times before, and one year I did the 40 mile option, along with Suzanne Erickson.  I was training for something, I guess.  Anyway, over time, things changed and Ryan Chaffin has taken over as Race Director and along with that, he laid out a new course.  I'm going to say it is much more difficult than the old course, simply because I clocked a terrible time on this course - 7:39:37.  

Before the race, I was feeling pretty good about the race, because I had dusted off my old Youngren training plan from the Graveyard 100 in 2015, and re-purposed it for the Lake Martin 100, which I'm going to be running in March.  I was well into training, putting up a 60 mile week before Dizzy, and running another 60 mile week with the inclusion of Dizzy.  

However, my mistake was that I had run most of the miles on the road, with very little trail running at this point.

Once again, as part of my overall training for Lake Martin, I had signed up for the Huntsville Track Club's Grand Slam.  The Grand Slam consists of completing the Dizzy 50K, the Rocket City Marathon, Recover from the Holidays 50K, and a little ol' run on Monte Sano called the Mountain Mist 50K.  All of these races take place in roughly a 10 week span of time.

 (A picture of this year's Grand Slammers, before the start of Dizzy)

(Tim Pitt getting dialed in before the race.)

Let's Start the Race

Ryan Chaffin gave a few pre-race announcements, pointing out the layout of the course, which only served to confuse me.  Anyway the race started with a shout of go, followed by a late air horn blast, by James Hurley, which was pretty funny and good for a laugh as things got rolling. 

The course consists of a north loop, which is pretty technical, followed by a south loop which is less technical, but it's where I like to fall - a lot, just to spring me back into the moment. There's nothing like falling on a gravel road to make you feel like a true trail runner. 

(This is a picture coming up a climb on the South Loop.  I look deranged.)

 (A couple more pics.)

The Loops Keep Coming 

The Dizzy consists of three full loops that are approximately 10.5 miles.  As I came through my second loop, I see my friend, Cary Long sitting down in the pavilion.  He said two loops were all he was doing today.  Cary had come off the Barkley Fall Classic, and had not been doing a lot of running since.  I felt his pain, but I decided to keep pushing for the finish, even if it would mainly consist of the "Shar Shuffle" - a horrible name that has been given to me due to a few slow finishes, when I fake running by simply swinging my arms, and kind of shuffling.

However, I think we will have to call two loops at the Dizzy -- the Fun Run.  

(Cary Long before his Fun Run) 

Now the Story of the Incredible Hulk

I was on my last loop at Dizzy when I see Collen Wilson-Hodge catching up with me.  Her husband Andy had already witnessed at least two of my spectacular falls -- but I digress.  With Collen closing in on me, I knew I had a great opportunity to find out if I could get hit with enough gamma rays, could I become the Incredible Hulk -- which would be really cool.

Collen is a NASA scientist, and the Principal Investigator (or PI as those of us in the community call it), on the Fermi Gamma Burst Monitor.

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Collen: 

"When we built GBM and launched it on Fermi in 2008, we designed it to detect gamma-ray bursts well," said Wilson-Hodge. "Back then, it was only slated to fly for five years. Today, GBM is at the forefront of an entirely new type of science, ushering in this new era of multi-messenger astronomy."

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. Since beginning operations, GBM has triggered on over 2,000 gamma-ray bursts. With 14 detectors pointed in different directions, GBM sees the entire sky not blocked by Earth. It's sensitive to X-rays and gamma rays with energies between 8,000 and 40 million electron volts (eV). For comparison, the energy of visible light ranges between about 2 and 3 eV."

So, I asked Collen, if I could get hit with that level of Gamma radiation, could I become the Hulk?!?

As, she passed me, she said, "No, you would die."

(A picture of Collen on the course, before she dashed my dreams)

Well, I regrouped from the sad news, and managed to finish the race.  All in all, it was a good day on the trails with a bunch of good runners.

(Crossing the finishing line, with Melissa Hopper on my heels.)