Catching up..

So, oh my goodness its been long..My husband stumbled upon my blog the other night and reminded me I even had one!

So where did I leave off, oh yes, the tarheel 10 miler...3 years ago!?  Wow slacking, well really its been busy.  So in the meantime since the 10 mile race, I discovered a new love...ULTRA races!

Technically an Ultra is any race distance further than 26 miles (a marathon) but most of them start around 50k, and go up from there.  I ran my first 50k to celebrate the new year, 2012 and placed 2nd overall, of course this was a fat ass race so out of the 60+ runners that started only a dozen actually ran the whole distance.  It was mostly friends and friends-of-friends getting together to eat, run, and hang out.  This was really just a training run for the Uwharrie Mt Race in February.

Signing up for a 40 mile race I though, 'OHH what have I gotten myself into." I can get quite competitive with myself, and am barely ever able to just go out and run a race for fun, so I knew I had to train hard in order to finish and be proud (and still walking)  Fortunately, the Trailheads, offered up plenty of support, tips, and running buddies to get me to the starting line feeling good.

There was a bit of a mix up at the start, and so it was delayed just long enough for the sun to come up.  Which was pretty nice considering that the start (and finish) is straight up (or down when you finish) a very rocky, rooty hill.  I kept telling myself to take it slow, I wanted to average a 9:30 min pace..On a side note, as I found when I transitioned from running road races to trail races, just because I can run a sub 7 min/mile marathon does NOT mean I can or should do the same on trails.

So I started out conservatively, losing all my Trailhead friends who were also running the race, and as I got to the top of that first climb, all of the adrenaline that was sitting like a rock in my stomach shot out into my legs, and I bolted down the hill about a 7 min pace..oops.  On the plus side I finally caught up to two other Trailheads Wackus, and Willow (obviously not their real names, but they are their real Trailhead names!)  Anyway, it was really great getting pushed along with the two people I had been spending most of my training runs with.  For the first 30ish miles it was pretty thrilling to switch off with Willow as the first female runner.  Uwharrie is an out and back course, 20(ish) miles out and then back, so when you turn around, the 20 mile racers who started an hour after are all finishing their races.  Its a trade off, good and bad, since you are running at all these people now, but thrilling to cheer and be cheered for by each trail runner.

As I said, I was upfront for 30 miles, and then superstar Marie Ange just flew past Willow and I.  At one point I was ahead and was just leaving an aid station and Willow was getting to it, she looked at me and said "go, there is a girl right on my tail..."  Needless to say at that point there was no holding Marie Ange off, shes an incredible runner and I was just happy to run in front of her at all.

The last 10 miles went by in a blur of nasty gu's, boiled potatoes and flat cola.  Though it was a hard race, I actually didn't feel as bad as I thought I would.  No hitting a wall, no puking, crying or even really stopping along the way.  I was thrilled to come in second, followed very closely by Willow in third.

Since the race in Feb I have been battling achillies tendonitis, so the only race I have run since was the local 4 (miles) on the 4th (of july) Strangely enough I placed 3rd overall for women.  It did actually help to buoy my spirits since running has been so sparse, I have been on the bike and swimming/aqua jogging while my PT and I try to fix my achillies problems.

Anyway, that about sums up my running to date.  My DH, DK, has signed up for his first marathon.  I think he curses the day he signed up for it...distance running is, shall we say, not his bag.  I have been going along with him for his long runs, and he has been doing great, even though he's not really loving any part of the training.  I think he'll do well if he sticks to the plan and keeps it up.

ta-ta for now...