this was my first off-road experience so i wasn't looking to pop an artery trying to pr this thing. plus i had a good race last week, so this was just for fun. the race started and everyone started down the trail to the only straight path of the entire race. a group of five or so elites took off and i was hanging out with some others going at a pretty good pace at the front of the pack. we hit a turn and let the fun begin. wow, it's all i can say. it wsa so much fun. there were so many twists and turns, i never knew where i was at any point during the race. even if i had a map, i would have struggled. luckly, the trail was pretty well established and the race crew put flags in the sketchy parts. we ran over these train tracks and did two loops around a maze of turns with obstacles a plenty. i started to pass the couple runners in front of me (who were nice enough to stop and let me by, cheers!). i was ducking under trees, jumping over them, running across little bridges. up the hills, down the hills, through the mud! way fun. and the trails ran right next to each other so you would be running past the back of the pack and suddenly you see the race leaders zip on your other side. at about the second loop, there was no one around me, so i just had fun with this race. going back across the tracks there was a loop on the other side that you went by the finish to get to. i saw mr. olympica already finished, no worries. another loop of twists including a stream crossing. no big deal except remember it is below freezing outside. went across and only got a little bit of my left shoe wet, not that bad. more turns and jumps and...back across the stream? okay, oops, left foot not so lucky. oh well, the finish was not far away. jogged into the finish and sarcastily asked, "did i win?" which made the volunteers chuckle.

nothing. if i wanted to light it up, i definetly would have came to practice on the trail prior to the race. but no worries, i just enjoyed it.

i had to beeline it out of there because we were throwing a birthday party for my daughter in the afternoon. no warmdown, but i didn't go that hard, so didn't need much.


lack of trail running.


i had so much fun! next year i'll have to stick around a while, looks like there were raffling off quite a bit!