This past Tuesday, Jan 7, was one of the coldest days we have had in our neck of the woods in about two decades. On a dare, I took the challenge to either ride my bike or run. I chose running so I could take the dogs with me. Here is a couple of pics of our 2 mile, 2 degree, 2 dog trail run.
It was so cold that by the end of the run, I had frozen eyelashes and the dogs had frost all over their muzzles. But it felt SO good to feel and hear the crunch of snow under my feet and watch the dogs running and tumbling and playing in the frigid air.
Up today was the Monte Sano 15K Trail Run at the State Park in Huntsville. It rained all night so I knew it was going to be muddy, sloppy, slick and hilly. It was all of the above. Our "adopted son", Matt and his girlfriend Leanna, were nice enough to drive me down there. My gorgeous other half opted to stay home today. I can't say that I blame her, three hours of standing on the top of a mountain or hanging out in the car waiting on someone to finish a trail race isn't much fun in cool weather. I wore my Salomon Fellraiser shoes and a set of Salomon short gaiters that a running buddy was nice enough to loan to me. Very happy with the performance of both the shoes and the gaiters. My only expectations going into this race were to have fun, finish, enjoy the scenery and learn more about my new sport. We started at 8 am on the dot. The rain had cleared out but it left plenty of wet trail and slick rocks to challenge everyone. The first really cool feature was running thru a rock tunnel at about mile 2. This is a picture showing the outside of the tunnel. It was too dark inside to get a decent shot.
I got into a good groove early, running the flats, easing down some gnarly downhills and running/power walking the hills. There were PLENTY of those. It seemed like 90% of this trail was either up or down. Lots of deep water and MUD,MUD,MUD. The second pic is about 4 miles into the race, this waterfall formed a calf deep creek crossing at it's bottom.
I kept on keeping on, listening to my music, enjoying the scenery and just generally having a great day in the woods. My shoes were great! Other runners were slipping and sliding badly in the muddy stretches but those Fellraisers just chewed it up and spit it out. The gaiters were great too. One drawback to having 4x4 type shoes is that they toss rocks and small pieces of wood from underfoot. Some of these will inevitably find their way INTO your shoes. The gaiters stopped that. I DID wind up with sandy mud under the balls of my feet inside my socks, but with all the water and mud, that was to be expected. I stopped at the aid station at mile 5.5 to refill my Camelbak and clean out my shoes. I was moving right along when I misjudged the depth of a mud hole at mile 7 and twisted my right ankle pretty hard. I just kept on running after tightening my shoes. What can you do? 2.4 miles from the finish, out in the middle of the woods. It was painful but not debilitating, so DRIVE ON! I took this picture at the base of a waterfall at about mile 8. I stopped to soak my ankle in the cold water to keep it numb.
Mile 8 to 9 was ROUGH! Lots of climbing and scrambling to the top of the hollow, to make a flat finish back to the stone pavilion start/finish. I had a blast at this event. The course was definitely challenging, made doubly so by the torrential rain the night before the race. The course was well marked and there were volunteers at some of the more obscure turns to make sure we headed in the right direction. My unofficial finish time was 3:06:30. Since I was one of the last to finish, the event crew had already taken down the finish line clock. I will be returning to this trail for the McKay Hollow Madness 25K in March. That will be my last trail race, as triathlon season will be upon us. I have the Dry Creek Trail Half Marathon at the Cheatham Wildlife Mgmt Area, just north of Nashville, in February. But the big event I am trying to get into is the 10 mile Swim the Suck race. It's in October in the Tennessee River Gorge area north of Chattanooga. Only 75 swimmers get to race. I will be on my computer at midnight, February 1 to try to get entered. Then I may have to chance the name of the blog to Turtle Slow Soul Swimmer! I REALLY want to get into this race. When I first starting doing triathlon I could barely swim. I want to train really hard and prove that I can go this distance. But for now, I'm going the distance it takes to stretch out on my couch and prop my right foot up on some pillows. Today was an excellent adventure! Tomorrow go outside and do WHAT MOVES YOU!!
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