It's summer and time to begin training again. Hmm, doesn't seem like there any time off, may have to check into that. Trying to keep the plate clean of races and maintain focus on only a couple at the end. So, with that said, got talked into doing a trail race this weekend.
Ten miles, hope I didn't bite off more than I can chew. The timing seems perfect for doing a race called the T-Rex when the Jurassic Park movie is in the theaters. Choosing between running or sitting in a theater watching a T-Rex in a remake of a movie, that I thought was poor to begin with, sign me up! Naming a race after a dinosaur, has to be fun, right? The key feature, hence the name, is something called the T-Rex hill. Sounds scary, but I've run some damn scary hills, think I can handle it, no worries.
Rooooooooar goes the start! Fitting, because what starts in a wide open grassy field (mouth?), soon becomes a single track path in the woods (throat?). The bottleneck resulted in some walking, though I wasn't worried because in my head figured ground could easily be up once hitting the dirt roads (which I thought too up most of the course). This is the point of the story where actually running and knowing the course prior to racing it is probably is a good idea. Put this in my memory book for next time.
Soon after the first mile, finally, here's the dirt road! Did get around a few people, but the first surprise is this dirt road is a constant incline. Before mile two, back in the woods in a single track again. Again more up. Where did the fun go? Oh, here's some down, no wait, it involves jumping across a rocky streams. This almost feels like a remake of the trail race I love to hate!
Somewhere around mile five, dumped out of the woods into an open field for power-lines. Another good sized hill, with fake dinosaur eggs as a prop. Somewhere in this stretch I realized that this wasn't going to be an easy run and the joke was on me. This was now about survival. When I finally came face to face with the T-Rex, I gave in and walked up it. Had I attempted to run up it, it would have drained every ounce of energy from me as it devoured me.
Back in the woods, finally found some downhill, but as a cruel joke it included hurdles of down trees across the trail. I was gassed and really worried about injury, so eased up some here. Got passed by a couple of people, but was more worried about leaving this trail in one piece instead of coming home with bite marks.
The final hill, had to goof off a little for CT, hence my T-Rex impression. In the end, ended up coming in second for my age group. Happy with that, but felt like I'd go extinct a couple times during some of the climbs, so know I need to train harder in the coming months to prepare for my favorite trail race to hate. This turned into a bigger test than expected.
