Petrovaselo 5K Trail Race
Petrovaselo is a small village in Romania layed out quitely between hills. Most of the hills there became a giant wineyard. A few days ago I visited the wineyard, but not to drink some good quality wine. There’s a yearly trail run event organized there and running through those hills seemed a very nice challange for me. I therefore signed up for my first official 5K Trail Race.
I’m not sure it was a wise decision, because at this point I’m just 2 months into consistent running training and I never ran before in my life. Adding to this, all the runs I did till this race were on complete flat. There’s literally no hill in the city I’m living and it’s logistically hard to find the appropriate time to travel to a more hilly terrain, run and then come back.
Still, I would like to share with you some thoughts on how I prepared for the race and how the race went.
Preparing For The Petrovaselo 5K Trail Race
There were a lot of unknowns about this race and I didn’t have any clue what to expect from my body during a hilly offroad race. I literally couldn’t set any pace goals at all, because I didn’t know what my pace would be when the trail starts to climb and I also didn’t know how fast can I go downhill without risking an injury. Background: I have some congenital problems with my sight and therefore I can’t really see the different “traps” of an uneven terrain soon enough to tackle them appropriately. That;s what I think that trail races are a whole different monster. At least for me!
Still, there was one thing I was aware of and that was in my control. It’s obvious that your heart rate would skyrocket when you climb a hill. So, what would be the best way to improve the cardiovascular system? More precisely the ability of the heart rate to recover as quickly as possible? Well, intervals! So, I really did a lot of interval runs. At one point I was doing some intervals in Brasov and with a little bit of help from my brother I created a short video about it.
Meet the Hoka Stinson 7
There was one thing that needed to be addressed: I definitely needed some trail running shoes. The running shoes I trained in were definitely not optimal for trail. Also the entire week before the even was very rainy and everybody expected a lot of mud and slippery terrain.
I started to research a little bit what would be the most suitable option for myself. Based on a lot of reading and advice I wanted a stability shoe with the highest amortization possible.
In the end my choice went towards the Hoka Stinson 7. I would have preferred the grey coloring, but they didn’t have it at the running store where I usually buy my gear.
Obviously, I’m not affiliated with Hoka in any way and I also don’t have experience comparing running shoes. That’s literally just my second pair of running shoes ever! But let me tell you this: the Hoka Stinson 7 feel incredible and they did very well. I didn’t slip even once during the race!
The Breakfast
I know a lot of people that are new to running have this question: what should I eat before a race? Well, I think there are a lot of variables and each body reacts differently to different types of food. Also, a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on “carb loading”, tough I think it doesn’t really make sense for a 5K race where you’ll probably spend between 350-500 calories.
Based on feedback, before a 5K race I usually just eat a banana 2 hours before the race start. It’s important to get some carbs in that don’t require a lot of digestion. That’s why I avoid to eat any type of meat.
What I also do is prepare in advance some water to which I add some electrolytes. This time I used the Isostar Hydrate power tabs. I’m not sure if they are good or not, but they seem to do the job for me. I drank 500ml of water containing one power tab on my way to the event. I also had another 500ml of it at my car to hydrate after the race. And that’s basically it!
The Race
I knew it would be hilly, but I didn’t know how hilly. In the end, the elevation was objectively not really that much, but as I expected, it was a continuous up and down with almost no flat portion. Here’s a overview of it.
This time I didn’t really try to lign myself up in the front, which in the end was a mistake. On the initial short downhill the trail was fairly narrow and there were a lot of people. Overtaking them slowed me down a lot.
As you can see, a not so steep uphill portion began where I could still run comfortably and I started to pass a lot of other people. But my pace was still slower than what I could run at that point based on the heart rate. The next portion was a steeper and longer uphill and that’s where I started to have enough room around me and run my normal effort. By that time, however, I was already in the second kilometer.
I ended the first kilometer on a 6:46 pace, which was way slower than what I wanted. The second one was also the most tricky one with the longest and steepest ascent. Here is where I also walked for around 200m and therefore my pace was very low.
Starting from the 3rd kilometer I barely had other people in front of me so I could run my own pace and it did get higher and higher, even though there were still a few climbs left. And I started to pass a lot of other participants, starting to have a feeling that I will probably finish within the first half. The 5th kilometer was actually my fastest one, followed by a few hundred of meters of ascent towards the finish line.
Results
In the end, my result was better than what I had expected from a first trail race.
My overall time was 35:41, which landed me on the 49th spot out of 170 participants that finished.
I was even happier to see that I acutally finished 22nd in my category (male 30-49), which means that 27 participants that finished before me were actually younger than 30. As a 40+ guy that started running 2 months ago and weighted 140kg a year ago, I’ll take this any time of the day! I even have a hunch that in a male 40-49 category I would probably had a top 10.
What’s next?
One week from now I will participate in another hilly trail race, but this time it will be 10km long. That’s actually a real challenge, but at least I have some baselines to tackle it based on the experience I had in the Petrovaselo 5k Trail Race.
Then late September there will be a marathon in Timisoara (where I live) and my goal is to run the 10k race there and finish with a time below 55 minutes. So, I’ll have a long 17 weeks to train towards that goal, as I won’t race any other event till then.
That’s it! How was your very first trail race? How did it go?
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