This past Sat. I did my second trail race ever. My first one was about a couple of years ago when I did one of the X-Terra series, that race was a 5k I think.
The one I did on Sat 2/28 was at Castlewood Park in Ballwin, MO. it was put together by Big River Running Company.
(nice face huh? that's my: "I'm gonna sprint!" face) ===>
The race started at 10am, it was a cold morning (in the low 30s but it definitely felt colder) but I was fine as soon as we started. The course was harder than I thought it would be. Of course running on a trail is completely different than road running... you have to be totally aware about where you step because there are roots and rocks hiding underneath the leafs. This trail is used a lot by mountain bikers and you could tell, there were a lot of MB tracks on the ground, and that was a pin because it was very uneven and easy to twist your ankle, which i did a few times. Each time I did I would drop myself with it and that seemed to work, I never had to stop because it wasn't too bad. Lots of hills, up hills.. down hills.... and at the end.. a nice little river to cross.... it was actually kind of fun to go through it. I didn't care to run the last .3 or so with soaked shoes and socks. If it would have been anything longer than a mile I probably wouldn't have done it.
By mile 4ish I fell.... I missed a root and went down, luckily I fell on a bunch of leafs... I pretty much bounced back up and kept running. It could have been a lot worse because there were parts where we ran on gravel, rocky areas and steep hills. At mile 5 the S. Louis Tri Club (which I belong to) had a water station.... felt nice to have some agua, Gatorade and a GU (I forgot to bring my own gel) and of course seeing some of the tri club peeps, cheering and all.
Finished at 1hr 18min. Not bad for a trail race. When I went to the organizers' website to check official results they had a disclaimer stating: "For safety reasons we made a few changes to the course over the last month. These changes gave us an official race distance of 9.2 miles" Doesn't have any additional info on it....
Now the crazy thing about this whole story is... at the finish line they had NO WATER!!!!....... (crickets)
WTF... what race doesn't have water at the end???? not even a 1 mile race! I mean, we just ran 10 miles - or 9.2 - They only had those 180 energy drinks. I couldn't believe it! Everybody was asking each other, where's the water?? do you know where is the water? water??? nada.... no water! I mean, c'mon! picture this: you go, run a 10 mile trail race, finish and someone hands you a Red Bull.... yeah... pretty wild eh? Disappointing. At least the race t-shirt is cool :)
P
OMG chlorine is SO nasty, especially when there is a ton of it... they are putting WAY too much of in the pool where I swim. I have taken 2 showers, one at the gym and one at home and I still smell it, fell it.. TASTE it!!! This is the second time that I actually taste it. It felt weird when I was in the pool, in between work outs, my mouth and especially teeth felt dry..... they are still a bit dry and even my throat feels a bit.. sore, and not the "cough - cough" type sore, it's more like the I went to a concert last night and sang all the songs for 3 hours sore.
