Well, it's over and I'm glad. That was one TOUGH race. Okay, first for the weather. When I left my house this morning there was just a little snow on the lawns in my neighborhood, but none on the roads. Where the race was held, just a few miles south of my neighborhood, there was no snow at all, except for just a little bit on a couple of wooden bridges that we crossed during the race. The temperature was 35°F, 81% humidity, no wind, so on the chilly side, but really not to bad for running. I parked at the rec center, which the race website said to do, but that was about .25 mile from the race start and finish, so I headed over and picked up my race bib, chip, and packet, then went back to my car to drop of the packet and pin my bib on. Since I was so closed to the rec center, I went in there and was able to use a real bathroom inside a heated building with no waiting in line. That was awesome. There were a couple of other women in there who were doing the race and we commented on how awesome that was. When I left the rec center I had about a half hour left until the race, and so I started running a warm-up. I think I ran about 2 miles, but I'm not sure because I stopped at one point to tighten the drawstring on my pants, and then forgot to restart my watch when I started going again. During my warm-up, I ran into my good friend Bozena (pronounced Bo-zhan-ah), who lives near where the race started. She was walking from her house to the rec center. I had a nice short visit with her and invited her to come watch the end of the race. After I finished my warm-up, I went over to the start area and there was a long line for the 2 port-o-potties they had there and I was glad I had gone into the rec center. Miles 1-5: The race got started and it was a bit crowded for the first mile or so, but I felt okay about the pace and things were going well, until the 4th mile, and then things got tough. I slowed down going up the hills because my legs were not cooperating very well. The 5th mile was also tough with a lot of up hill. Splits for this section were 9:07, 8:45, 8:16, 9:34, 9:32. I noticed during this section, I think it was maybe the third and fourth miles, that we were on part of the same trail from the 10 mile race I ran a few weeks ago. But we only stayed on that trail for about 2 miles and then went off somewhere else. I also think it was during this section we started having these stupid speed bump things. About every 10-20 yards, there was a little hill, like an overside speed bump. It usually took me 3-5 steps to get over one of these things. But they just kept coming and made running a decent pace very difficult. Also, towards the end of this section, I saw a woman in a pink shirt up ahead and I decided to try to catch her. Miles 6-10: The speed bump things continued, but somewhere in here I passed the woman in the pink shirt. As I went past, I said to her that I'd been trying to catch her for a long time. She said, "Well, you passed me." She and I traded leads for a while during this section. A lot of this section was an out-and-back and so we started seeing the race leaders on their way back from the turn-around. I started watching for the women in order to count how far back I was in the women. When I got to the turn-around, I figured that I was the 10th woman. At that point, I was ahead of the pink shirt. On the way back from the turn-around, I was just happy to be a head of all the people that I saw who hadn't reached the turn-around yet. There were some muddy patches in this section and I got a lot of mud on my shoes. Sometimes there were big clumps of mud on the bottom of my shoes that made it hard to run. Splits for this section were 9:09, 8:38, 8:28, 8:45, 9:35. Miles 11-13.1: The 11th mile was a killer. Lots of uphill. My legs were just trashed and I walked a fair bit in the 11th mile. At this point, the pink shirt passed me and I never caught her again, although she was close enough that I could see her most of the rest of the race. At one point during the 11th mile, there was a race volunteer who said that once we got to the gate it was all downhill from there. I didn't know how far away the gate was, but I just tried to keep going until that gate. I wouldn't say that it was all downhill from the gate, but it was mostly downhill after the gate. Splits for this section were 10:58, 8:40, 8:08. There was a lovely steep hill right before the finish line, and was happy to be able to run up it, but there was a guy who passed me right before the finish line. My watch measured this course at just a few feet over 13 miles, so I don't really have a pace for the .1. The mile that was shorter than what my watch said must have been at the first of the race, because my watch was consistently at about .92 or .93 whenever I passed a mile marker through most of the race. I figured that I was the 11th woman since pink shirt finished ahead of me. But there must have been someone else in between us that I didn't realize because I ended up being the 12th woman. I waited around for a bit and ate a couple of pizza rolls that were provided by a local pizzeria until I saw my results, then I walked back to my car and went into the rec center and changed into some dry clothes. I had been relatively comfortable in terms of temperature during the race, but I was absolutely FREEZING on that walk back to my car. Even after I changed into dry clothes, and put my coat on, I was still cold. After I got dressed, I moved my car closer to the start of the race and parked on the street and then went back to the finish line area and waited for the awards ceremony, which started not long after I got there. I found Bozena and her two kids at that point. She hadn't made it to the race before my finish because her daughter was napping, but she came a little later and stayed with me during the awards ceremony. Also, my husband and daughter came to the awards ceremony. They hadn't made it to the race finish either because my husband had to take one of my boys shopping for a birthday present and they couldn't do it until certain stores opened up at 10:00. I finished the race at about 10:30, so my husband didn't make it. I got my little medal in the awards ceremony and I won a gift card for one meal at Qdoba in the raffle. This is the first time I've won anything in the raffle. I bought some KT tape and taped my knee up last night and the knee didn't give me any trouble during the race or afterwards. I'm just a little stiff generally right now. This was a stinkin' tough race. In addition to the hills, the overgrown speed bumps, and the mud, there were several really tight turns. Just for kicks, here's the elevation profile: 
My time in this race can't compete with the road half-marathons that I've done, but I guess it's not too bad for a trail race that I struggled through. I think it would be nice to go out and do training runs on these trails since there so tough, but I would be afraid to of getting lost. Maybe I'll try it sometime anyway if I can get Team Michelle to come with me. I could always use my Garmin to find my way back.
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