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!
No comments:
Post a Comment