Last Saturday David and I ran The Legend. This was a 5-mile trail run at a park north of Lansing, MI. That's about a 90-minute drive for us so we stayed at a hotel Friday night.
It was the third and final race in a series of trail races I completed, so I earned a nice big drinking glass with the series name on it, given to everyone who finished the series. It's not a medal but it's pretty cool.
We had gone out to this park a couple of weeks ago to try out the trail and it was pretty tough and muddy and flooded out in a couple of places. Saturday at the race they expected people to run through the flooded out spots but I admit I went it to the woods and went around the water instead of going through water that was above the ankles. Call me a wimp and it wouldn't bother me. I collected a lot of mud on my shoes because I did plow right through the muddy spots.
As usual I went out too fast because the trail was pretty flat and gentle at the beginning. When it started getting rougher and more hilly I slowed way down. And I was really careful (slow!) going through the muddy spots because I didn't want to slip and fall like a number of other people did. David was up ahead of me and out of sight for the whole race because he's faster than me. But that was cool because then he was at the finish line yelling "Go Cathy!" by the time I got there. :)
It was weird because I spent a good portion of this race running all by myself! I've never had that happen before, usually there are always other people around. But I was too slow for the fast crowd and too fast for the slower crowd so I was mostly by myself. Near the end I was running next to a woman for a while and we talked a little bit about how much the hilly trail kicked our butts. I tried my best to pass her at the end but I just had no juice left so she beat me.
But I really find I enjoy the trail races because it's a mellower crowd, it's a good challenge, it's pretty on the trail and it's just a lot of fun. I had a good time and I think I'll do this same series again next year.
