Striders Winter Racing Circuit 2011

I run so many races that I figure it's probably not worth posting about all of them.  The Striders Winter Racing Circuit is a five race series so I figured it deserved a post.  This is by far the toughest series of races I have ever run.  Most race directors are looking for fast PR courses to attract runners.  This one takes the opposite approach.  They pride themselves on having a great training series to get runners ready for spring marathons.  I think they try to throw at us courses so hard that no matter what marathon you are training for it can't be as bad as the training series.  It consists of a 5K, 10K, 10 miler, half marathon, and 30 K all two to three weeks apart.  It goes from February to April so along with the tough courses the weather is usually terrible conditions to run in.  The first three races are run right in my neighborhood, which is convenient.  The only problem is I live in an extremely hilly part of town and all three courses go straight up the hills I usually try to avoid in my training runs.  The 10 miler has a climb of over 900 ft between mile 4 1/2 and 7 (straight up to the top of 36th and 46th streets for those of you familiar with Ogden!)  The last two races are in Ogden Valley so even though they are later in the year, they are at higher elevation and it's still really cold.  Last Saturday when the 30K started it was 25 degrees F.  I hate the courses and they make me feel horrible.  My times (like everyone else) are pathetically slow.  They have even caused me to suffer from a strained calf muscle three years in a row but for some reason I keep running them.  I'm really not sure why.  Maybe I just love pain or maybe it's because Jason's clinic sponsors the races and I'm too practical to turn down the comp spot I've been offered.  There were some amazingly fast runners in this year's series.  Other years I've been able to win some of the races but this year I had to settle for 4th or 5th in most of the races.  It is always a challenge to try to beat my times on the course from previous years (some I did, some I didn't.)  Luckily for me, some of the runners ahead of me missed one of the races.  Since you have to finish all five to be considered for the awards that put me in 2nd place and I even came home with a cash prize.  It wasn't a huge one and considering it was over 6 hours of running combined, not worth the time or effort, but I definitely wasn't going to turn it down.  I'd like to say I'll never run it again but I guess we'll just have to wait until next year and see...