I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this race considering I'm smack in the middle of a marathon build, plus I'm not a climber. I had been able to lay down some decent training times in the flats but my quad strength was zapped going into this (I could feel it the day before walking up stairs) and figured I'd see how I felt on the first climb.

At the gun I went out pretty fast with the leaders and felt great. I was really able to stretch it out, especially considering the first mile was all downhill. HR was good, breathing just fine and my legs felt fairly ok..until we hit the first climb. Immediately my legs went from ok to pure jello and I knew this was going to be a long, hard day. I slowed drastically knowing I'd need to struggle through the next 9 miles of climbing and didn't want to push to the point that I'd make a stupid move and end up going down somewhere and getting hurt. As the day progressed the climbing was killing me and considering the marathon training ahead I'd reluctantly decided to take it a bit easy and save something for the coming weeks. With that I started walking more of the bigger climbs and then let it loose on the flats and descents.

Around mile 9 I was taking it easy again when a girl pulled around me and I knew the trail was leveling off and then dropping very shortly. So I sucked it up and jumped in to follow her. Turned out to be great company as we knocked a few jokes back and forth, crested the top and started flying back down. We managed to pick off a number of people over the course of the final 3 miles and that was it.

Can't say I'd do much differently considering my focus wasn't on this race, or this series really. This was the fourth in a series of Xterra Trail Runs and the series was an absolute blast. I've loved running these trails and plan to put in a bit more work on them (and hills) through the year and we'll attack it again next year.