trail race summary

I survived the trail race!  It was hard, although now, hours done with it, I can say it was also fun.  The scenery was beautiful, the trails well marked and pretty clear, and the weather was amazing!  The course was a 5.3 mile loop that we repeated 3 times.  Perk: there was a four-bale-high hay obstacle around mile 4.25 to mix things up.  This was really fun the first lap, a nice change of pace the second lap, and more of a half-hearted roll/fall the third lap.  My big mistake was not packing any energy gel or granola bar or anything.  I had eaten a good breakfast - coffee, yogurt, cereal, banana - and felt really good the first 7-8 miles.  But by mile 12 I was really hurting for gatorade, powergel, ANYTHING with calories.  I was slowing down a lot and it felt hard to focus and even a little hard to see at times (just kind of blurry).  Not great.  But I did manage to finish... so I'm happy for that!  My final time was 2:45:39.3.  I also twisted my ankle during the second lap, but thankfully it didn't bother me and seems fine now.  Hooray for stronger ankles!  A year ago I would have been sprained and sidelined!  I also got to feel adventurous/sneaky when I took a quick bathroom break in the woods!

Dave also raced today - the 5.3 loop.  He had a fantastic race, running faster than he ever has before and also farther than ever before!  He finished in 44:04.9!

The exciting part?  We both got second place in our age group!  The funny part?  For me that was second best out of three; for Dave second out of four.  Dave as 12 overall out of 55; I got 27 out of 40.  The other exciting part?  The delicious meal we got to eat after we finished!  Homemade vegetable soup, bison burgers (the course ran past the buffalo pen at the park... kind of morbid to then eat them, but hey), cornmeal muffins, apples with caramel, pretzels, and cookies!

In the end, I would say I would definitely do this race again (I'll just remember to take pack some calories next time!).  And Dave certainly enjoyed his debut into racing - he really loved running with others and pushing hard.  We're eying a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot for the future...

We forgot our camera this weekend, so unfortunately we don't have many pictures.  After Dave finished his race he went back to our friends' and showered, then returned to the park to see me finish.  The only pictures we have are ones he took with his iphone... and since he had showered we don't have any dual-racer pics.  Next time!  Here is what we do have:

shoes off!

my souvenir (could be worse!)

All in all: a pretty great weekend - not to mention all the fun we had Friday night with Rachel and Joel - eating,  talking, hanging out, catching up... and Joel and Dave even snuck in 5 games of racquetball!

We are off to bed!  Gnight!