One down...many more to run!

Close your eyes.  Not yet, you’re reading this.  Picture this.  That’s better.  You lace up your worst pair of running shoes.  The wind bites through your layers of clothing and you can’t wait just to start running.  The siren goes off, your running in a pack of about 200 other people.  Quickly the pack narrows on to a muddy path.  The mud is deep, wet and cold.  Within the 1^st 5 minutes of your run your feet are now sloshing around in your shoes.  To avoid the worn down muddy path you run along the side only to have the pickers dangling over the path nipping at your shins and calf’s.  The cool air pierces your lungs as the first hill rapidly approaches.  Quickly you’ve come to realize this is that portion of your worst dream when your legs are moving, you aren’t going anywhere, and they feel like they weigh a ton.  Then you crest at the top of this hill, mud covering the tops, sides and sole of your shoes and then quickly before you catch your breath there is the first step on a patch of ice the size of a Lincoln.  Strides shorten, you hold your breath, arms stretched out and prayers that you stay up right and the theme from “Last of the Mohicans” running over and over in your head.  Toward the end of the race the muscles are fatigued, legs are Jell-O, but you’re almost done and you have to push through because the last thing you want to do is a face plant in the middle of the muddiest portion down the stretch after you’ve come this far.  Now you’re finished.  And MAN that was fun! 

 

My wife and I did the Hartville St. Patrick’s Day Trail run - http://www.hartvilletrail.com/

 

 

We had a great time.  It was everything I described during the run and then some.  I would do this again in a heartbeat.  The race was fun, the people were fun, it was an all-around great experience for our first Trail Run.  Between you and I, Ryann is hooked.  This won’t be her first rodeo with trail running either.  This could be the start of something special. 

“Do you know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the Prize?  Run in such a way as to get the prize.” 

Yeah I'm smiling, this is fun!

I can't answer the question why Ryann isn't...I'll leave that for another day and time.

We will run faster the next time.  As hard as it was I finished in 27:19 and Ry in 45:33 and I couldn’t be happier.

Let the training for the next one begin!