Friday, August 7, 2009

The Legend Race Report

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.

5 comments:

chris mcpeake said...

Congrats on your trail race. Cool race report. I agree trails races tend to have a more mellow group of runners and you never know what to expect on the course.

chris mcpeake said...

thanks for the comments. Your too kind. Dont worry if you keep on those trails you will end up sucked into doing ultras in no time

Black Bear! said...

Is there any updates on the marathon training? Or the speedsessions?

Cathy said...

Black Bear, I am so lazy about blogging. I took five days off from running to go on a houseboat trip last week. Not good, but I'm back into it now. Only have done one speed session because I don't go to the class every week. I went this past Wednesday and we did hill repeats, which I'm sure are good for me but I hate hills!

Black Bear! said...

Oh, that's right. I forgot about your houseboat trip! I hope it was fun!

Hills are great for you. They say, a way to keep injuries at bay and still raise your heart rate. I actually miss my old hill route by my old house. Well, sorta. LOL