Waterfall Glen Xtreme 10

So....argh. Saturday morning was the Waterfall Glen Xtreme 10 trail race. I really didn't prepare too terribly much for this particular event, mostly because I figured that all the miles I am logging for the marathon, doing long runs at Waterfall Glen and all the triathlon cross training have to account for something along the way, right? Yea....right.

I woke up, wanting to hit the alarm and go back to sleep, but I dragged my butt out of bed and went directly for coffee. Morning ritual. Nothing gets done with out at least one cup of coffee. Made my peanut butter and jelly toast on wheat, went upstairs, got dressed, and headed out for the race. Once I got there, I found parking easy, and went to pick up my packet. It was pretty cloudy, humid, but not hot....yet. This year they decided to do a pace group wave start, so I was in the "yellow" group, which went out third. once we started across the grass, I realized how uneven the ground was, and took it fairly slow until I reached the trail. Once on the trail, I felt good, and felt like I needed to get around the pack of people in front of me, or I would not get anywhere. Well, this feat proved more difficult than I anticipated it to be because of all of the OTHER people on the trail that day NOT participating in the race. So, I had to deal with runners coming in the opposite direction, bikes in front and behind us, plus the 800 people out for the race.

After the first hill, I was finally able to pull away from the larger pack of runners and get some breathing room on the trail. I kept a pretty steady pace, but the clouds started to clear, and the sun was coming down. It was starting to get pretty warm, actually. About three miles into the race there is a hill nicknamed "Big Bertha" due to its slope and length. I knew that this hill would really stretch out the racers, and once I was at the top, and "conquered" this hill, that the rest would be a little easier. Not so fast. The hill stunk. It was longer than I had remembered, probably because I always run down this hill. (I like it better this way.) So, up the hill, steady and kinda slow, I went. I knew that I needed to conserve energy for the remaining 7 miles of hilly terrain, and blasting sun. My pace became relatively steady, and around mile 4 I met up with Noriko, a very strong runner. She said, "c'mon, let's go, don't let those men pass you". So, I stayed with her for the next 4 miles. She kept me going, pacing me, and encouraging me. She is coming off a knee injury, so our pace was probably much slower than she is used to. Nonetheless, she was killer help. Around mile 8, she needed to take it easy and sent me on my way with a "Don't stop running. Just keep going". And off I went. I'm not sure if staying with her helped or hurt, but in all honestly, I was just really happy to have someone with me. By now, the temperature was really starting to slow me down, and make me feel crappy. But, I knew I only had two miles to go, and cold water and food were not far away. I went on, thinking only about water....

I finally reached the .5 mile to go, and went back into the grassy starting field. There were sticks and other debris on the ground. I almost rolled an ankle a couple of times. In this field, there was no relief from the shade, and I was dripping wet. All I could do was search for the finish. I finished at 1:25:34, a lot slower than I had hoped, but I finished!! Felt like I was hit by a truck later in the day, and the heat really effected me for the afternoon, but, what doesn't kill us will make us stronger, right? I must be getting really strong.......