Race Report: Eastbay Northeast Regional Open Race 2021

After a summer of mostly cross-training (almost exclusively road cycling) due to reactive Achilles tendonitis, I was cleared by my physical therapist to begin land running the first week in November. Although still on unstable footing training-wise (both literally and figuratively), I began looking for cross country meets to salvage anything resembling a competitive season this fall. There seemed to be only three reasonable options on the calendar for the immediate future:

1. The NIRCA open/alumni race on 6 November in Shelbyville, IN
2. The Trails of Miles race on 13 November in New York
3. The open race at the Eastbay [Footlocker {Kinney}] Northeast Regional meet on 27 November in New York

The first two options were both two soon after returning to land running, but the third option seemed reasonable and served an ulterior motive. The goal race for this season had been USATF Club Nationals in Tallahassee, and if my Achilles was able to handle a race two weeks out (and I was able to demonstrate a reasonable level of fitness), I might be able to convince myself that I wouldn't embarrass myself too terribly if I made the trip to Florida this December.

However, even scheduling a race for 27 November was a bit ambitious -- it would be only 25 days after resuming running training after taking two months completely off (excepting roughly 20 minutes of running a week on an Alter-G or treadmill) and a month-and-a-half on intermittent training, including no workouts and a single run over 90 minutes in length. But, the thought of capitulating a cross country season completely and voluntarily was more painful, so I drew a plan that would get me to ~40 miles of weekly running with a test effort the Tuesday before to gauge whether or not the Achilles could handle the required effort and duration of a 5 kilometer cross country race.

The rehabilitation process went (surprisingly) well on the return to land running, though not by any means was the Achilles un-restricted or pain-free.  However, considering Silbernagel's return to sport guidelines, I continued training due to a lack of flare-ups in symptoms, including increased pain. Everything went well until the weekend before, when I overloaded the Achilles a bit by running a first 3-mile test effort on the C & O Canal path on Saturday followed by the Tuesday's planned 3 x 1600m interval workout on the track (my first running workout in about four months) on Sunday. While the 1600s went well (I was able to hit roughly my pre-injury half-marathon pace on the first two repetitions before succumbing to an abdominal cramp on slowing on the last one) and the Achilles felt fine during the work-bout, it was painful following. 

Set back aside, I registered for the open race on Sunday before running easily in the intervening days. However, the Achilles never felt as though it quite recovered from the previous weekend's effort in the days leading up to the race, and it was still quite sore on the trip up to New York, which was quite an event in-and-of itself. I booked a train ticket, but, heading into the terminal, I realized a left my running shoes in the car. Dashing back to the car, then back to the terminal, I glanced at the 'Departures' sign, and noted that the status of my train was 'Departing.' I climbed the escalator only to observe the train leaving the station...without me on it. I was issued a ticket for the equivalent ride leaving an hour later, but I would get to Penn Station a bit after 4 pm -- meaning I would not be able to get to preview the course at Van Cortlandt the day before, which I very much wanted to. I decided I would need to drive to New York (which would get me to Van Cortlandt around 4 pm, with time to spare for a run in the park before sunset).

So, I would have to eat the train ticket. Now, the question was: do I drive to New York (on Thanksgiving weekend) or stay in town and do a race-like effort at the local parkrun the next day? I decided to start driving toward New York, regardless. Once I reached Baltimore, I decided that the extra effort was worth it and pushed on towards The City. Along the way, I visited Delaware for the first time met someone at a nature preserve outside of Wilmington one used to work at NASA-Goddard! It was an excellent chance encounter.

Anyway, the drive up to New York was otherwise un-eventful (the traffic not-so-bad, the tolls so-bad).  I got to the Airbnb at the northwest corner of the park in Yonkers, changed clothes, and was able to get in a 5-mile run which previewed most of the course, although I got the orientation backwards. The Achilles was sore most of the way, and I was not optimistic about the following morning.

After a mostly sleepless night in the Airbnb (I can confirm that there were sections of New York City that did not sleep the Friday after Thanksgiving 2021), I jogged to the starting line from the Airbnb, with the Achilles still not feeling great. However, the pre-race strides felt fine, and, once the gun went off, the Achilles turned out to be a non-factor for the most part. Since I didn't know the course (which is fairly famous; all the markers are 'Tortoise-and-hare posts' that must be traversed with a specific orientation that is obvious once you've done the course once) I followed two high schoolers who got out quickly around the cricket fields. Once we reached the first mile marker (around 5:05), I decided to burn the high schoolers and take charge of the race going up the hill. 

Unfortunately, around the 1.5-mile mark, I could feel my lack of fitness catch up with me -- I couldn't wait for the hill to end, which I knew was around the 2-mile mark. I could also hear one pursuer behind me. Climbing the hill felt slow, so I was surprised to be in the lead 2 miles into the race. Once the downhill/rolling section began, I suffered another abdominal cramp and it felt as though that might have helped to draw the curtain on the race for me. However, once the second place runner pulled even with me, I was able to fight back a bit better, and, once the course flattened out again, I was able to surge back into the lead going over the bridge. 

 Once I hit the section under the overpass, I took a friend's advice and began to turn the screw the best I could, since there was only ~700 meters left until the tape. I was able to hold it together well enough and (after a few looks over the shoulder heading into the chute) broke the tape for the first time in cross country. Compared to the championship races later in the day, my time of 16:41 was paltry, but at least I was back racing, even though the effort was much more exhausting than it should have been. But, the Achilles held up. I cooled down back to the car at the Airbnb and hit the road back home, which took much longer (~6 hours of driving) due to the holiday weekend traffic. But I was at least buoyed by my preventing of the cross country season from being scuttled.