October 26, Niagara Falls International Marathon. I saw it on television, one of the weight loss shows the girl ran it late in her year of weight loss. I immediately put it on my list of races/places I wanted to visit. And we are registered. Hotels booked. Passport appointments made. New marathon training plan printed and stuck on the fridge.
To help get me motivated, I signed up for a 10K. It was yesterday. It was a trail. The day after flash flooding in Wichita. What an adventure. But let me back up a little bit...
I haven't ran much since I had knee surgery. Two mile turkey trot last year, on no training. But heck, it's only two miles. Followed up by the Frosty 5K New Year's Day. Again, with no training, but heck, only 3.2 miles, right? Then in April I did the Hard Charge. 4 mile mud run/obstacle course. Because I can, even without preparing. (Boy did I pay for that one).
And then yesterday. I signed up two weeks ago, Steve signed up for the marathon. I ran 3 miles 3 times and 5 miles once (walked more than I ran, but I went 5 miles). And was very nervous.
It turned out to be a very successful run for me. If you go on line and look at my time, it won't reflect that. But, here's how it went.
A portion of the bridge was washed out, so they did an out and back for the marathon and half marathon. When the 10K started 15 minutes after the half marathon, we were right behind them all on their second mile. No worries. Within half a mile I'd sloshed through ankle deep water. All the wussy non-trail runners tried to avoid it, but I've run these trails before, I knew my feet were gonna be wet and muddy the whole day. It was uneventful for the first 3 miles. And then...I hit a line of people on single trail. It was a 40 foot drop on the left, a 6 foot climb and trees and barbed wire on the right. I waited, and waited, and waited, about 35 minutes, for my turn at the part of the trail that had been washed out by the rain. They had tied a rope through the trees. I saw a few people in front of me sliding and slipping and one dropped her ear phones and we waited a little bit longer for them to be retrieved. I kept a positive attitude, which wasn't easy because people are annoying. When it was my turn, I traversed it easily. Not because I have awesome trail skills, but I have experience. Know where to put my feet, how to run in mud, etc. I used the rope for balance though, because I'm aware I can slip and I don't have a death wish.
As I hopped across, ready to let go of the rope I hear a scream, cussing and the rope jerks in my hands. I grab on and pull tight as hard as I can, out of instinct. The very large young girl behind me is dangling over the edge of the trail. We can't pull her up, but we (nice young man and I) hold the rope tight till she gets her feet under her. Then I take off running down the messy muddy trail.
I finished in 80 minutes (minus the standing around time). My slowest ever 10K was 73 minutes, last summer 5 weeks before my knee surgery. But with the added muddy trails, I am quite pleased with this. I ran every step that was runnable. I'm excited to get into real training.
All that work for this.
I've found a 10K in July I'm going to run, a women only mud run in August, and a half marathon in September.
So here's to journaling all my training adventures here.
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