Dry Creek Trail Half Marathon, Zen Swimming

Last Sunday I ran my first trail half marathon. It was the inaugural event for this venue, Cheatham Wildlife Preserve,outside of Ashland City. We decided to go up Saturday and spend the night, rather than get up before the butt crack of dawn and drive 120 miles to the race. We have a wonderful dog nanny who comes to the house and takes care of the crew while we are gone. We were almost ready to go when I noticed Emmylou the Wild Thing Pittie, laying on the den floor chewing on something. Turns out that something was one of my partner's eyebrow thinning razor things. I got the handle out of her mouth, but we couldn't find the razor part. So off to the vet we go. They X-rayed her belly and there it was, plain as day. Sooooo, the vet induced vomiting and thank the gods she puked it up. So $190 later and an hour and a half late, we headed up I-24. We stopped in East Nashville to pick up my race packet at the Nashville Running Company on Woodland Ave (LOVE that store) then we had lunch at one of our favorite spots, The Sky Blue Cafe. Got to Ashland City and checked in to our hotel, the recently renovated Border's Inn. Nice hotel, reasonable rates and only 10 miles from the race site. We had dinner at Riverview Restaurant, decent food at a decent price. I couldn't keep to my new No Sugar, No Grains there, but I did the best I could. Up early the next day and off to the race. I already had my bib number and stuff so we got a few extra minutes of sleep before heading out. It was a gorgeous morning, sunny, in the 40's, with a high of around 60 forecast for the day. I thought it was a nice turn out for a new race. It was also very well organized and supported with aid stations approximately every four miles. It was my first "no cup" race, meaning you had to supply your own means of carrying water or sports drink. I opted for my Nathan race belt with one 20 oz water bottle and one flask holder. It worked quite well. The gun went off at 8 am sharp and off we went. I was unsure of what the course would entail so I wore my Salomon Fellraisers. BIG MISTAKE! Only about 1.5 miles of the run was actually on trail, the rest was a mix of Jeep roads and gravel roads. The Fellraiser has a very aggressive tread that is awesome for sloppy, muddy, rocky, root covered trail. But for this course it was like running in soccer cleats for most of the race! I KNEW I should have packed my Hoka Mafate 2's but like a big ole dummy, I didn't!
     That was my only complaint about this race. I had FUN and finished my longest off road distance yet. The fact that my feet hurt so bad, is no one's fault but mine. My finish time was about 3 hours, 13 minutes. I want to go back next year and try to break 3 hours. The course was fairly flat and fast with only one serious climb at about mile 4-5. Plenty of after race food and they drew some bib numbers and I won a pair of Pearl Izumi arm warmers and a Pearl Izumi running cap. That was cool! I kept the arm warmers and gave Miz Pinky the hat. We left shortly after I finished. We needed to get back home to the Furbags and get ready for the work week. Stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Smyrna and I ate all of my lunch and part of Pinky's. All in all a great race weekend and I will go back next year!
     Monday morning was back to swim practice. I have a motto I LOVE to repeat to my swim coach, Miss Sue. "Swimming Don't Care". Swimming Don't Care if you ran a trail race that weekend, all swimming cares about is swimming. Since my BIG THING for this season is a 10 mile swim race, there will be very few missed swim days. 3400 yards later, my workout was done. The roughest part was 60, yes 60, 25 yard repeats, done on 40 seconds. It was hard for me to even keep up with how many I had done! But I got it all done and felt much better for doing it. Great way to just Zen out and shake out the kinks from all that running in the wrong shoes! Tuesday was a super easy 2 miler in the woods with the dogs. Right back into a 2 mile swim workout Wednesday and 1hour of interval running on the trail today. Just getting it done and loving life! Next up is the McKay Hollow Madness 25K in March. Right back to Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville for that one. It's a tougher, much more technical course with LOTS of climbing. I can't wait! So until next time, y'all take care and get out and DO WHAT MOVES YOU!

LIVE Every Day!

 The above logo is for an inaugural 5 mile swim, to take place in the Tennessee River, just outside Huntsville AL and I AM IN! It will be a great warm up for the 10 mile Swim the Suck, approximately 1 month prior to the Big Swim. It will give me a chance to perfect my nutrition, get a feel for being in the water for a lonnnggg time and it's a circle swim, so there may be some current to swim against, depending on what TVA is letting off at the dam upstream. This seems to be a year of inaugural events for me. Hobbs Island is new, Tick Ridge was new, and my next race, the Dry Creek Trail Half Marathon is new. There has to be a meaning to that. I think it may be that I'm branching out and moving away from strictly road triathlon to trail racing, off road triathlon and trying to be PRESENT in every moment of each event, with no thought for what comes next on my race calendar. Once again today, the lesson of LIVE EVERY DAY was put right in my face. For anyone reading this post who doesn't know me, I am a physical therapist assistant and I work in the home health sector of our profession. Today I received the saddening news that a patient of mine who is younger than me had died last night. Privacy laws won't let me elaborate on this patient but it floored me. It's always hard to lose a patient to death. Most of our patients are in the geriatric sector and you can kind of reconcile yourself to losing a patient in the twilight of their life. It's much harder when it is someone who you think has lots of years left on earth. None of us have an expiration date stamped on our bodies. None of us know when the lessons we came to learn and the lessons we came to teach are done and it's time for us to move beyond this life to the next. So LIVE EVERY DAY! Don't exist,LIVE. Do what you love as often as you can. LOVE your family like there is no tomorrow and hug their necks every chance you get. Laugh till your face hurts;  be kind to someone who will never have the chance to return the kindness.Hold dear the real friends who are family by choice and release any grudges you may hold against anyone:they steal your power and your joy. Leave no doubt that when your time comes that you lived and laughed and loved with all the power in your body. I have always said that I don't want to live a pristine life. I want to slide into the next life, bruised and used up, laughing like hell and saying "WHEEEE…That was a HELLUVA ride". Today I did zero training, but I received another life lesson in following my passion and being blessed with a healthy body to do this crazy stuff I love. So if you read this, I hope it helps awaken you to LIVE and DO WHAT MOVES YOU!

Tick Ridge Trek 10K, Running by Feel and Second Chances

My view today at about Mile 3 of the inaugural Tick Ridge Trek 10K/25K trail run. It took place in Elkton TN and was put on by TeamRocketTri Club and the Huntsville Track Club. Excellent event! Well organized, sweet route, great volunteers and tons of after race grub to enjoy around a campfire or in a warming tent. Beautiful weather today for trail running; overcast, mid 30's, and a few snow flurries. The route was mostly tractor trails and double track with a bit of single track, a bit of asphalt and a bit of concrete golf cart track. It was very beginner friendly, non-technical with enough climbing to make your quads stand up and take notice. I will definitely go back next year. I am going to e-mail the race director and see if it will be dog friendly. I would LOVE to take Emmylou to a race. That distance and that much climbing may be a bit beyond Brando's limit. He would do it to please me, but I would never try to push him so hard that he hurt himself. Today I used nothing to tell me my pace,time, etc. I had my Cyclemeter program running on my iPhone so I could look at it later, but no spoken announcements. I believe my finishing time was 1:42. That was about 1:24 running time and 17 plus minutes of stop time to catch my breath at the tops of hills, get some water at aid stations and take pictures. I love running by feel. I'm not trying to win and I'm my only competitor, so it's good to just RUN. I did listen to music during the race. It's funny how the right song usually pops up at just the right time. Somewhere around mile 4 there was a big climb with several switchbacks and Johnny Cash's "Hurt" was just the right song. At about Mile 5.25 Macklemore's "Same Love" came on and it was at a spot that truly went thru the woods and was great for contemplation. Then right at Mile 6, with the finish line within sight up pops Kid Rock's "Cocky" and I actually passed 3 people I had been following the whole race. Good times! Next up is the Dry Creek Trail Half Marathon on February 23 at Cheatham Wildlife Preserve outside Ashland City, TN. I'll get in a 10 miler next Saturday then taper off the following week.
     Andddd drum roll please…I got into the Swim the Suck 10 Mile swim race in the Tennessee River on October 11! Thank goodness my better half is so danged fast on a keyboard. The race sold out in 27 minutes and she busted her ass to get me in! So looking forward to that big challenge. My tradition is to do some big epic challenge that scares the shit out of me, somewhere close to my birthday. I will be 47 years old on October 7, so this event is the perfect challenge. I want to train really hard and validate my swimming abilities. I am an adult onset swimmer and I want to return all the faith, hard work and knowledge that Coach Sue has invested in me to prove that I can swim 10 miles in under 6 hours. I LOVE long distance swimming. I can just get into a Zen state and concentrate on nothing but the next stroke, the next kick, the next yard. So that training will crank up as the year goes on.
    One last thing to mention. We have a new family member. We rescued a 10 year old Black Labrador. Her owners were going to put her down, simply because she has arthritis. Long story short, she is now on an anti-inflammatory, a prescription diet to help her drop about 25 lbs and is doing well. I am SO happy I made the trip to Tuscumbia AL and took her out of that dog pound. She bonded with me immediately and has become a happy member of our Pack with a lot of love to give and a lot of life left to live. Everybody deserves a second chance. Aunt Bee got hers and we couldn't be happier with this sweet, laid back well behaved senior girl! Tomorrow morning I'm taking the dogs for a short slow recovery run before a full day's work at the nursing home. Thanks for checking out my blog and get out and do WHAT MOVES YOU!