I wanted to start out somewhat conservatively, as I was unsure of how I would feel. I was hoping to average 6:30 miles, but thought that realistically, I should start out just sub 7. Immediately I was in 7th place. I was unsure of how many competitive runners there were, so I didn't know if I was ahead of where I should be. In the first mile, I passed 3 people, and was sitting in 5th. My first mile was 6:22. That was a bit faster than I had wanted to do. My breathing was ok, and I was trying to settle in to the pace.

On a downhill around the 1 mile mark, a felt something "tweak" in my right foot. It felt as though my right shoe was cutting in to my upper foot (outside). This is the same place that I had an issue after running a marathon about 8 years ago. A lot of thoughts went through my mind on whether I would need to stop the race or not. I didn't want to hurt it any further.

On the flat and section again, my foot was feeling fine. At about mile 2, I got passed by 1 person as we headed into a hilly section. Another runner came up to pass me and went slightly ahead of me. I overtook him on the hills, as he really slowed down going uphill. Heading to the end of the first lap, I was feeling spent already, and was sitting in 6th.

Heading into the second lap, my goal was now just to keep my cadence going. I tried to concentrate on speeding up my turnover. This helped, and I seemed to settle into the pace a little more. Mentally, I was having a lot of different thoughts - about my foot, about how many people were going to pass me, about how much I might slow down.

At about the 3.5 mile mark, the lead woman passed me. She told me that she had been pacing off me the whole way. She encouraged me to stick on her shoulder. I tried to, and stayed there for about a minute. Then she put some space between us.

Heading into the hilling section for lap 2, I had lost some ground and was hearing footsteps again. Once again, it was the same guy who had caught me heading into the hills on lap 1. Same thing happened, he could not keep up with me through the hills.

Coming out of the hills and into the last half mile, I had picked up ground on the lead woman. My body was spent after the hills. They seemed even higher the second time around. I was not hearing any footsteps and was content to just ride it in the rest of the way. I was happy to cross the line.

I maybe would go out a little slower. Looking back at the race, my lap times were not too bad, however. Only 1 minute slower on the second lap. If I can train to where I can run a negative on the second lap, that is what I need to do.

My old friend from high school and college was there, so I spent a lot of time catching up with him, and not enough time doing a warm-down. I ran for about 5 minutes and did some stretching.


My cold. Not doing enough hill and speed workouts.


Awesome Trail! It was fun to run an off-road race again.