Trail Mix 25K

The Trail Mix 25K was the most fun I've had at a race ever. Not that it wasn't hard, but there was just something fun about the whole darn thing. It was my longest race to date, and I'm usually leery of trail races, but I kept an open mind and allowed myself to walk up the hills. HA! "Allowed" myself. Like I had a choice in the matter. But I do love to run downhill.

I had two goals: (1) finish without hurting myself and (2) come in around 2 1/2 hours.

The weather was warmer than it's been, 50s at the start and overcast throughout, but nearly 70 by the time I finished. I was worried about rain and had a wardrobe crisis. I finally settled on shorts, long sleeve tech shirt, nylon vest, smartwool socks and trail shoes. I could have ditched the vest, but then I'd have had no place for my keys, my watch and my snacks.

Race started at 7:30. I thought I'd been to this place before, and indeed, I had. Big Boy and little boy downhill skied there a couple winters ago. I recognized the hill and thought I hope I don't have to run up that thing! The race consisted of two loops of 12.5K (or 4 loops if one was running the 50K, but I'm not that crazy yet).

We started off with some nice rolling hills and I overheard someone saying, "Don't go out crazy fast, because there's that hill and you have to do it twice. So, I, in my abject fear of running up hill, am looking out for some monster leading me up into the sky.

After a few more ups & downs, I get to the top of this hill and see a ski lift. Uh oh. But it's the top of the ski lift. Sure enough, we're running that monster hill, but DOWN it! And I like running down hills. I passed almost everyone on my way down, joking to a guy I passed that we'd have better luck sliding down with a sheet of cardboard. Passing everyone down the hills happened most of the time, actually. I felt like I was flying down the hills. The flats were just my regular running, and I walked up most of the hills. On the second loop, I walked up all the hills, but I still flew down them.

There was only one spot where the trail could be considered technical (and it was technical for dummies, luckily for me), a nasty, narrow, rocky up hill that nearly everyone walked (I don't know about those in the front of the pack, I wasn't there!) and a corresponding narrow, rocky down hill that was sort of fun. The rest of the trail was wide mowed path or wood chips with a couple of forays onto blacktop. Some of the wood chip section was quite soft and I didn't like that so much. I was afraid I'd roll an ankle, but no.

The clock said 1:18 after the first loop, and as I was just heading down the home stretch, I saw a group of guys standing in the lake. Good idea! I finished in 2:39, collected my bag of goodies, and walked over to the lake where I stood around in cold water for awhile. Changed into my new shirt, some clean shorts & sandals and took myself out for blueberry pancakes.

It was my longest run ever, and the most fun, but not the fastest. And that didn't matter one bit.