Two preparation trail races are done. The first was Mosaic 15K. I did OK in this largely because I did not get off course! That got me a 1st place Masters Female, although I did not stick around to pick up the award. Phoebe raced the HS 5K but there was no competition for her. She finished as first female to cross the 5K line though, so there's no doubt she ran well.
In the meantime my strength training had been going well, with increases in maximums for all categories. 165 lb box squat means I can squat my own body weight! Surprised I can bench 80 lbs with multiple reps and sets. Haven't done max singles though. I will ask Jen about that. Phoebe had a coaching session with Jen. I was pleasantly surprised to see her form on the 3 disciplines was pretty good, although of course Jen found things to improve. She has her first Powerlifting meet next week.
Then came Bandera. I showed up to our last training run at the Hollows on the Tuesday before (New Years Day) only to be told by Tammy that the race director had sent out an email the night before to say the Parks people had pulled permission for the race. I was pretty mad - I love to go to Bandera. But Tejas Trails went above and beyond with the help of Camp Eagle to move the race. No mean feat. We kept our reservations at Flying L Ranch and planned to drive the 2 hours west on race morning - our start had been moved back to 10 am so that was helpful. Krystn and Tammy went down together, while I went direct from work. We had an early pasta dinner in Paps at Bandera and then relaxed in our cabin watching The Cain Mutiny. Good film, I'd never seen it before. We all got a good sleep and the drive down was unevenful although the 8 miles of dirt road was a bit of a pain in a Prius C!!
We just about had enough time to get our chips on and visit with Dawn and her 15 year-old son who was running the 25K as well (and smoked it). Then it was time to start. The course was complicated, with multiple switch-backing loops, but the markings were good and the funneling of people in and out of X-Roads aid station solid. The first two segments were around 5 miles each, with the third and fourth about 3 and 2 miles. The course takes you up and over ridges and through woods. Narrow, technical single track trail. For the most part the course was good. The only thing I did not like was the 2-way traffic on the stalk of the lollipop route. It was a bit frustrating to constantly have to adjust for others. But most of the time the runners were pretty chill about it, which was nice to see. Nobody was being a jerk! I went well for about 7 miles, OK for the next 4, but at mile 11 I started to struggle a bit. I had not taken care of electrolyte balance well enough in the beginning, and although I made an effort to fix it, it started to catch up to me. The last part where I was looking for the 25K split was a bit of a trial. I was convinced I must have missed the turn but knew I probably needed to trust myself to not have missed it. I was right and got to it with less than a mile to go. I ended up 8th of 18 in my age group. I had wanted to get inside 4 hours, but the course was for sure harder than Bandera, so I ended up with a 4:37. I'll take it.
Now onto roads and sand for Badwater Cape Fear!!
After a half ironman on my 50th birthday and some injury problems I decided to have another bash at a 100 mile trail race. I completed Kettle Moraine 100 on June 2/3 2012 with the help of coach Olga Varlamova-King. My new goal is to go faster at distances less than 100 miles..... and to have fun doing it.
