Wissahickon Trail Classic

Fairmount Park is the largest urban park system in the country, contrary to what many people think about Central Park in NY. Several parts of the park have a pretty elaborate trail system, the Wissahickon creek area in particular. What I could never figure out is why people don't sponsor more trail races in this area. Pretzle City Sports seems to have a monopoly on trail races up in Reading, but there are only a handful of races in the Wissahickon, and many of them are friendly, informal races sponsored by the local running group, the Wissahickon Wanderers.



Today was the 5th annual Wissahickon Trail Classic. This was my first time running this race, but I was pretty familiar with the course. It sticks mostly to the Northwestern end of the park, weaving in and out of Forbidden Drive and the trails on both sides of the creek. I was surprised to find that there were well over 500 participants this year. I knew parking would be a pain, so I decided on a light warmup run and parked about 1.5 miles away. After registration and a message from the race organizers, we were ready to go.



Starting near the front of the group was key for this race, considering that most of the course meanders through single track, and passing anyone is near impossible. Still, I knew my pace would be middle-of-the-pack at best, so that's exactly where I lined up. I ran into Mike Santoro in the middle of everyone and we caught up shortly before the gun went off. The first half mile of the race was straight down Forbidden Drive, and it lulls you into a false comfort zone, since it has a pretty good net decline. This didn't last for long, because one of the biggest hills in the park starts at Forbidden Drive and Bells Mill Rd. This hill might not necessarily be the longest, but it defintely has some of the steaper portions in the park. I took this hill slowly, but still tried to keep pace with most of the people around me. My strategy in most races is to pick one or several people after the first 10 minutes of the race have gone by that look to be of comparable fitness levels and make them my goal. 10 minutes into a 10K is usually the point in which many of the overachievers have lost their wind and died off. It's also the point where I'm still feeling good enough to pick a competitive target, not someone I figure I can likely beat so I don't have to work as hard. I figured this first hill would do a good job at weeding out the crowd. I focused in on two guys, "green shirt" and "orange shirt" and made sure to keep an eye on their progress.



After the first big hill, the course took us through the newly renovated Wissahickon area. This area of the park has been cleared of many trees in an effort to rejuvinate some of the local animal species that have been faltering. It's a nice change of scenery, although at first it just looked like another urban development project. From there we bobbed and weaved all the way down to Rex Avenue, where we crossed over to the eastern side of the park. I passed green early on this side, but traded places with "orange" several times for several miles. I realized I had picked orange for more than one reason: he looked more cyborg than human. His visor and custom Oakley tinted sunglasses made a nice compliment to his Garmin Forerunner and his Ipod shuffle that clung delicately to his Zoot Tri top. It almost made me chuckle at first, but I was getting more and more aggravated each time he passed me. I finally screwed my head on straight and pulled away from him on a long uphill about 2 miles from the finish.



I joined a pack of about 7 runners that clung together like oil in water for the next mile down to Forbidden Drive. Several times a runner would pull away or fall off the pack, but would quickly rejoing the group. They carried me mentally down to the covered bridge where the group started to disintegrate on the half mile stretch back towards Bells Mill Rd. I was having a mental block and couldn't remember if the course continued down Forbidden Drive or looped up into the trails for the last half mile. I knew it had to go up, but I didn't want to admit it. I hit the trail hard but soon died. I got passed by my friend Mike S. on this last portion, who never stopped running even though I stopped to walk several times. The only thing that got my legs moving was "orange" was making a charge from somewhere at the bottom of the trail. He got pretty close a few times, but I managed to pull away once more. I could tell he was gunning for me. I made it up and over the top and down the long stretch to the finish line. There was a a few hundred yards on Forbidden Drive to the finish, where everyone can get one last chance to leg it out before the finish. I was all by myself on the downhill, but I could tell from the tone of people cheering that they weren't excited to see a guy like me pushing to the finish. Someone behind me was making a push. I sped up as much as I could before I heard the breathing and footsteps behind me, and it's a good thing I did because "orange" was only 10 yards or so behind me down the chute.

A great race overall. I liked the course and was glad for the warm weather, but not the humidity. I caught up with Mike S. a bit more after the race and we planned a few more excursions. I grabbed the rest of my gear and ran the last 1.5 miles back to my car. I was supposed to paint the living room today. That didn't happen.

10K in 52:08