Super happy to see the forecast this morning was down to 10% chance of rain! Headed out the door at 8 a.m. and drove to Wheat State Winery south of Winfield. Off of the highways, this is a BEAUTIFUL area, I had no idea. Twisty, windy roads and hilltops. Picked up my packet and had an hour to sit around - ran into my friends Derek and Ashley from what feels like a former life. Ashley is sisters with Jen, who is now married to Tom - remember Tom ya'll? They live in Denver, but had come in for the weekend with their baby. Jen expertly avoided me, but I chatted with Derek and Tom for awhile. Life is funny like that.

Started the race super pumped to hit a mental milestone for recovering from the IMLOU crash. A race. A real race where I start and finish without incident. In the first mile there was a flooded area we had to cross, then immediately up into a steep, rocky hill that had me gasping and heaving. But after that, it was gorgeous and fairly flat. There were areas with gravel, then rocks, then mud, and back again. And there was one more super steep hilly/rocky area where we did a little loop and turn around. But man I really enjoyed this run that ran through wheat and corn fields, the Walnut River, and back to the vinyard/winery.

I did roll my (bad) ankle four times in the first two miles. I knew it wasn't bad, but it didn't feel great. I had to super pay attention to the ground and what my feet were grazing over to not hurt myself. I did end up with some chaffing/rubbing on my achiles area, and a bloody scrape on my shin - and of course MUD CAKED shoes. I feel like a real trail runner now :)

There were four aid stations and two of them had wine - one white and one red. It was so lovely. Just little two-sip cups but how fun!

Run on trails?

After finishing, I got a nice goodie bag and a wine glass with the wine of my choice. I had one called Red Dog something, the one that was at the last aid station. There was a stage and music and a food truck and everyone was sipping wine and enjoying the day. I decided to go into the tasting room and taste the rest of their reds and the rose - ended up buying a bottle of rose and two of the Red Dog bottles (10% discount yeah!) before heading home.

My only sort of complaint is that by the time I got done (there was also a 5K), there was no carb food left - only bananas and oranges. There was some type of trail mix everyone was eating but they had run out. And the food truck was Italian, so I couldn't eat any of it. But not a huge deal, I ate a banana and was good.


Total lack of trail running.


In all, GREAT race and GREAT time. I chatted with the race director after and he said they really want to expand the race as it's currently capped at 300 people. He said they were thinking about adding a longer distance like 15K and I said I would totally be on board with something like that :) I will definitely be back to this one.