The Race

In an effort to keep this much less boring, I am going to write several posts about the race. I won't put you through the agony of sitting and reading 12 pages of babbling..... I am just going to stretch it out over several days, to really torture you. :)

I went into the race with the intention of running 1 loop. After that loop I would decide wether it was a good idea to keep moving on. Being at the race, seeing family, friends and familiar faces..... it made my desire to finish, greater than my desire to protect my injured quad. Basically, all my common sense got flushed down the toilet.

It was a perfect morning. There was certainly no need for arm warmers or gloves. I got my race packet, chip and positioned my special needs bag in a place I thought would be easiest to access (someone thought it would be best placed elsewhere (huh?). After the first lap I had to search for a bit to find it).

Having run this race once before, I was very excited to be in the park. There are so many beautiful spots.... I couldn't wait to see them again.

FYI: For those of you who haven't run trail races I need to mention that the atmosphere is so relaxed and everyone is so happy and friendly. I find that road races tend to make people a bit uptight. That 'anxious' tension fills the air. It could certainly be that you don't get overly excited when you know you'll be running all day long.....

At 6am, the race began, and so did my 12 hour journey.

Lap 1:

I could feel some discomfort in my quad within the first 10 meters. It was more of a dull ache than anything. I tried not to think about it and focused my energy on enjoying, and being in the moment. First time around, the hills and valleys don't seem very daunting (that certainly changes). The first lap went by pretty fast and my pain was tolerable.

The course was just as beautiful as I remembered. There is this one spot, where there is a stream running under a bridge and the mile high escarpment is full of patches of green. It's breathtaking.

My friend Gailanne had arrived after the race started so this was the first time I got to see her. After a big hug, she, Andrew and Jodie helped me through the first transition. Without even thinking, I was off and running my second lap......


Gotta run... more later.


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