Race Report: A Nu Race Trail Run

My first 1st Place finish!! Yea ok there were only 11 women running my distance but still I was SOOOOO excited! Time was 1:28:33, wouldn't have been a good time on the road, but given the hills I'm happy with it. Full results here.

I did the Nu Race Trail Run at Mohican State Forest in Perrysville. The had 3.5, 8, 13.1 and 31 mile distances. It was an inaugural run, about 25 people in each distance, to benefit Camp Nuhop, a camp for children with developmental disabilities.

I hope this event grows. It was well organized, a beautiful and challenging course, and for a good cause. It was far more challenging than the Hocking Hills Indian Run last month. They had all kinds of goodies at the aid stations -- I decided not to find out what would have happened to my stomach had I eaten the peanut M&Ms on the course but having them out was a nice gesture. And they gave out long-sleeved tech shirts, which is amazing.

My only complaint was the same one I had for the Indian Run, there were no mileage markers so I had no idea where I stood the entire time. Also the last two miles or so doubled back on the same narrow trail, that wasn't bad because it was a small field but if it gets more crowded that might get messy.

The 5-day-a-week dilemma

I'm using Cool Running's half marathon training program right now, though I've modified it pretty heavily. At the moment I have no use for speedwork. I'm not actually training for a half (yet), this program works perfectly though for the 10-mile trail run I want to do in December.

My biggest dilemma is how many days to run. I've wanted to go up to 5, but I think I've decided that four days of running plus one day of cross training is more practical. Every training program I look at for distances longer than a 10K calls for 5 days running.

The problem lies here: I want Fridays and Sundays off completely, because I'm either doing my long run or racing Saturday. So, if I'm a 5-day-a-week runner, that means four of those days are consecutive.