It was a pretty small race, but a few competitive people showed up. Two college-aged kids took the lead early in the run, and I was in the third position. My plan was to pace off of them, eventually passing when they seemed tired. I looked back and saw someone following a few feet behind me--so there was a row of 4 of us right at the front--and I knew right then that he would be the guy to win this race. Spoiler alert: I was right.

After 1/2 mile the two leaders started to fade a little bit. I expected that, I guess. So I kept the pace steady and just moved into the lead. The guy behind me stayed right there. It was kind of cool to follow the pace bike for a while. And I felt all tough when I was in the lead, like I had control of the race or something. I was imagining dropping the other runners one by one. I did the first mile in 5:20, which was pretty fast for me (my open mile PR is 5:09, I think).

Right after the first mile we turned onto a single-track trail that goes to the top of a big hill. It was kind of rough terrain, especially at the top where all this brush had been cut away to clear a path for the run. We were basically running over all the scraps and stumps at that point. In any case, the guy behind me stuck right with me on the uphill. I wasn't sure whether he wanted to pass or not, because there wasn't very much room on the trail. I really wore myself out on the uphill but I reached the top still in first place. My breathing was really labored, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that I already had a race that day.

Once we reached the top of the hill, we turned around to go back down and the guy behind me took the lead. He did a good job charging down the hill and gapped me by 200 yards by the time I reached the bottom. The rest of the race I was thinking about how clever he was to sit right behind me on the uphill, letting me wear myself out trying to get away from him. I gotta do that in my next race. The second mile (plus 0.1) took me 7:05. That's a bit slow for me, even with the hill.

The final mile was back on the bike path. At first I thought maybe I could run down the leader, because he was in sight. But my legs were very tired. Climbing that hill really fatigued me. There was no one in sight behind me, so I decided to just make sure no one caught me. The final mile was pretty uninteresting because of that strategy. The last mile took 6:20. Still a bit slow, especially since it was flat, but I'm not complaining.

My finish time was 18:46. The winner did 18:03, and the 3rd place guy finished in about 20 minutes. I was happy with my time, because my original goal was 6:00/mile. I did 6:03, so it was great. As a prize I took home a box of snickers marathon bars and a portable ice-massage cooler thing.

Eh, nothing. I guess if I didn't have a triathlon on the same day, I would have been able to stay with that guy when he passed me. It would still be hard to win though, because my 5k PR is 18:01.

I jogged for 1/2 mile or so, then stretched. I also got rid of my shoes to let my little toes breathe. My favorite part of racing is getting to run around barefoot afterward.


I had already done one race that day (at which I won my age group, by the way), so my legs weren't 100%.


I really liked this race. The registration was free, but it had more post-race goodies than some of the more expensive races I have done. There were lots of prizes too, and every finisher got something. I think every finisher actually got two prizes because there were so many.

The race venue was pretty nice. I haven't done a trail race in a long time so the single-track was really fun. The race was part of Lakewood Summerfest so there were lots of other things going on before and after the race too.

There were only a few people conducting the race, and I was really impressed with how well they did it. The guy in charge was acting as course marshall, so he would stand at one turn and then have to take a shortcut to get to the next turn before us. It was kind of amazing that he pulled it off. All the volunteers worked hard, and I hope this event grows in future years.