trail run

So I signed up for a race, slowly working up on my distance since having Ari, but not having a lot of choices in races because of Nate working the majority of weekends and not being able to run with 3 children.  This one was an 8k, only I didn’t realized until just days before the race that the registration said it was on the north side of the road by our house (in my mind it was going to be on the paved path on the south!).  Turned out it was a trail run, completely different than anything I’d ever done before (and then I understood why you couldn’t bring a jogging stroller), and my goal changed from finishing in under an hour to just plain finishing.  And on top of that the temperatures were in the low 30’s with a pretty good amount of wind (although by the end of the first mile, I didn’t even notice how cold it was!)  The race started with the guy telling us that the tide was higher than expected and there was driftwood all along the beach…HA!  We ran for quite a while in soft sand right along the water, dodging driftwood, mostly jumping over, but one piece was so big I had to go under it!  And then up a steep slope to a narrow trail with lots of tree roots, when the trail finally widened the sand was soft again and there were lots of “hills” which seemed worse because of the softness of the sand.  Anyway, long story short, I finished in 1:01:42, which I thought wasn’t too bad for it being my first trail run, of course that made me place as number 100 out of something like 115 runners (and I’m counting a walker in that number, because there is no way someone could have “walked” that route in 52 minutes!!!!).  Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I would do it again next year!