Saturday, March 15, 2014

I Love Dirt!

Preregistration for a race is crucial to my success as a runner. It gets me to the start line! When my alarm went off this morning, I definitely went through my checklist of ailments to see if I should get out of bed.
  • knee (fine)
  • stomach (fine)
  • cough (none)
  • sore throat (zip)
Oh well, I had zero symptoms when I went to bed so what did I expect. Once I accepted the fact that I would be racing, knowing that I would be running on dirt propelled me out of bed plus I had checked out a book on CD from the library for the drive!
 

At 5:50 a.m., I left my town. It looked something like this (except it was dark):


At 7:20 a.m., I arrived in Salida, Colorado. It looked like this:
 
I had plenty of time before I had to warm-up for my race so I checked in, finagled a smaller race shirt, and watched the marathoners take off. I had 1 hour until my start.
 
After I warmed up, I made a last minute decision to change into shorts. More for the principal than the correct choice of race gear. I generally train at 5:30 in the morning so I think I look a bit like the little brother from the "Christmas Story" movie when I run.
The race was awesome! I love the community of trail runners. Everyone is encouraging and positive. Plus if you race enough, you start seeing familiar faces and friendships are formed. It was a tough race with 2000' feet of climbing. Luckily, I love running up hills. Throughout the race, I had different groups of guys to work with and it did this 47 year old heart good to beat most of them (trail runners are nice, but still competitive!). As I crossed the finish line, I was the 3rd woman and 1st Master woman (40+), and 19th overall! I was psyched with my result.
 
The trails were dry and views were absolutely breathtaking in places! My heart was singing for the entire race. When you run, you can have good days and not so good days. Today was a good day!
WRITE. Every day in March write a slice of life story on your own blog. SHARE. Link your post in the comments on each daily call for slice of life stories here at TWT. GIVE. Comment on at least three other slice of life stories/blogs.














4 comments:

  1. Wow! What an amazing day! Congrats to you!

    I love the way you started this Slice with you doing the checklist in your head! So funny!

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  2. Congratulations on your STELLAR results! Racing is not my thing. Heck, slow jogging isn't even my thing. I'm more of a city walking kind of gal.

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  3. Wow! I love the contrast you showed us in the pictures of your town and the town you ran in. I'm not a big runner, but my dad is, so I understand the love of it.

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  4. Wow, I'm amazed at what you do and your passion. I'm glad it showed in your results. Running up???? Really??? xo

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