The Race

Today's race was incredible. The trail was much harder than I had expected and I later learned that it was just cut two days ago. It was pretty "new" and there was a lot of ducking, dodging, jumping, slipping, etc. The race was a 5K with 9 obstacles, as stated in the previous post, but what the map and pictures don't show is that many of the hills are steep, there were trees down every where and the path was very very uneven. Not to mention that it rained ALL NIGHT last night and everything was covered in slippery mud!

I ran the race with a woman that brings her children to my preschool, Monica, and a friend of hers, Pamela. They are both training for the Annapolis 10K that I thought I might run in June. They are pretty good distance runners. I didn't have much trouble keeping up with them, in fact, I felt that they lead a steady pace that I was very comfortable running. I'm used to running a little faster, but lately I've been going for speed not distance so I appreciated that they could set the speed.

Of all nine obstacles, the one that I feared the most was the rock wall. I'll be honest and say that I'm not the most coordinated person and I'm also afraid of heights. The wall wasn't too high, but I was covered in mud, it was covered in mud, and it was also at the near end of the race so we were tiring out. I ended up going up and over without any trouble, but that last leg of the race I was feeling very worn out and eager to see the finish line.

The final leg of the race was almost pure mud. I slipped and slid may way around the last hundred yards and found it very difficult to keep my pace up. As we neared the crowd and the finish line, Monica and I were side by side; we hit it hard and finished strong. Our husbands and my children were waiting with high fives and smiles. Pamela was just a few yards ahead of us. She was a rockstar, all of us did great, but she was really able to keep up the pace the whole way through. I think Monica and I started off a little fast and tired more easily.

So here we are at the end of the race. Muddy, tired, happy and glad that the race and obstacles are over. I think we'll definitely do another one, maybe not soon for me, but I know that having a crowd together to do one will be fun! I'm not so intimidated anymore with the obstacles. :)