Bergen Peak Trail Race

Yesterday was the Bergen Peak Trail Race in Evergreen, CO.  The course, as one might expect from the name, is based around a climb up Bergen Peak, and I chose it largely for this reason as a good tune-up before Imogene: starting at the Evergreen rec. center on the NE end of the Elk Meadow Open Space area (7,500' elev.), the race follows a 10.4 mile loop that rolls for 2 miles across Elk Meadow, then takes a turn and climbs 1,400' in 2.4 miles (estimates based on a park topo are from 7,800' to 9,200') then drops you straight back down over 2.7 miles back to the elevation you started the climb at, then takes you about 3 miles back across the rolling and very open Elk Meadow to the rec. center for the finish.

Dragon sculpture at Evergreen Rec. Center w/ Bergen Peak behind

Now, a month ago, this all sounded good on paper, but last week I was completely slammed with all sorts of meetings scheduled all over the place at times that conveniently chopped up my days to make any block of training time a rush, and was a bit wrecked from the mileage I put in at the Gotta Run XC camp.  So, there's that.

Stretching at my car the morning of the race, I was quite seriously weighing the merits of racing or not racing following a terrible warm-up, but after some sage advice from Alice, I decided to indeed race. I was lucky that as I stood there freaking out on the start line, someone who would later be identified as Dan Goding, was kind enough to ask me a couple of questions and joke around a bit. 

As for the race, it went something like this:
right from the gun, Andy Ames of the La Sportiva Mountain Running Team just shot off, with me in pursuit a fluctuating 15 to 30 meters behind, and a pack of bodies behind that.  We stayed this way over the first little climb in the first half mile, and then all the way across Elk Meadow to the base of the climb up Bergen Peak.  I wasn't feeling great through this part, but was maintaining pace, and as soon as I hit the climbing, my legs started to feel like they were actually underneath me.  Over the course of the climb, I gradually caught Andy, and ran the last mile up Bergen Peak on his shoulder.

Now, at this point in the past, I might have made a move, but this was a relatively sketchy descent, and with my head full of images of my skid down Gregory Canyon, I made the decision to pull up, and ease it through the descent.  At least that was the plan, but 1200m down the descent as Andy and I picked our way down, Dan Goding came blasting by.  Just freaking flying.  Still petrified of falling again, but not wanting to concede this early in the race, I went ahead and took off after him, still a little hesitant, but not letting the separation his descent was capable of creating happen.  After some tight switchbacks, we made it to the base of the descent, he about 20m ahead of me, I decided this was the time to give it a go, so as we turned for home across Elk Meadow, I upped the tempo, took the lead and carried that home to win, with Dan 40 seconds in arrears, and Andy a minute or two back from that.

It was hardly what I would call a good race, and physically it was not my best day ever, but it was good to shake off the rust of earlier in the summer, and I got to meet and chat with Dan and Andy, which was quite enjoyable.  Additionally, the course was spectacular, the race was well run and would have been relaxing and fun were I not neurotic, and Evergreen was beautiful.  Definitely a recommended event.