The Hoot

Couldn't be prouder of my cheesy homemade plastic owl bling!

2nd Place...old lady AG ;)

I entered my very first trail race on Saturday. It was just a 5K but with my 50K quickly approaching I am focusing the majority of my running on trails.  And judging by how often trail buddy & I get lost when we run (every. single. time...sigh.) I really want to get some practice and comfort with reading course markers.  It was a small local race to benefit the local nature center.  It was held at Spencer Crest Nature Center, which is also the local schools home Cross Country site, so I am familiar with it.  The timing was especially good since I could drop Thing 1 at practice and then go run the race.

I arrived a bit early as I wanted more than a 5K workout.  I registered & then ran the course once by myself.  It was muddy and had many technical challenges. Plenty of steep downhills, steep uphills, rocks, roots & mud.  Even a log to jump over!  I managed an easy jog through in 38 minutes....Thing 1 was mortified it took me that long!  Oh well!  That's just the way I roll on the trail!!! LOL!

There ended up being several other runners there that I knew, including 2 others from my Ragnar team & a few from work. 

Dirty Girl Gaiters & a trail hitchhiker ;)

One of the ponds from a run earlier this week

Soon enough it was time to start.  The start was a crazy mad scramble down a very steep rocky hill basically into a muddy bog.  It was soon apparent that a lot of runners were not familiar with a trail race as they were trying to tiptoe around the mud while the rest of us barreled through it.  We wound down and around a pond and through the trails, and faced 1 steep hill that I, and a lot of others, had to power walk up.  Then another long slow hill.  Then back to single track and on to the finish.  I finished in 32:02 officially, which made me 31/86 overall and, shockingly, was enough for 2nd in my age group! Pretty cool! Mostly though, I had a great time...did not get lost...and managed a total of 10K on the trail without getting lost! Kudos to the race directors for very clear directional arrows spraypainted on the ground and yellow tape barriers blocking off the wrong way. 

I have to say though that I was thoroughly EXHAUSTED after the race.  After a really tough 15 miles the day before, racing on the trail was SO much harder than an easy 3 or 4 hours out there with no time pressures!

I can't believe our 50K is only 6 weeks away!