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.

2010 Bowman Cup

I met up with a friend from college to do the Kent State Homecoming 5K this morning. It was a fantastic day to be out and about, in the 70s, sunny. Finished in 26:17 by my watch, 26:30 by the official race time (I like my time better since it took a few seconds to get to the start because there were so many people -- there was no chip timing!)

Except that it was a day of near misses! Only the first 400 people got the really cool tshirts, I was #408. My 5k PR is 26:06, so I was 12 seconds off. And when I went to Ray's Place afterward to dutifully replace carbohydrates lost, like every good little runner should, they had just run out of the Centennial Alumni glasses. *Pouts.*

Seriously, though, it was a really good day. It was by far the most crowded race I've done... almost 1000 people. The first mile was pretty slow, around 9:30, just because there were so many runners. I started out in the middle of the pack. I picked it up the second mile, but there was a bottleneck when the race turned onto a narrower trail, so I was just under 18 minutes at the marker. Kicked it up toward the end even more but the finish was all uphill.

Showtime

The iPod has been synced and packed (trying to decide between the new Arcade Fire or my classic rock mix for the race.)

My purple tech tank top and black jogging shorts are laid out.

My watch has been located and packed.

My alarm is set for 6 am.

It's 10k time!

Going public!

I’ve just wiped away all my other feeble attempts at being a blogger on my WordPress account (The record: one week, apart from the year I actually got paid for it).

But I'm going to transfer over a couple old posts from a private blog so it will look like this has been around for awhile!

I’m still of the opinion that no one really cares about me whining about shin splits but I’ve found some pretty cool public blogs by people in the area and figured I’d give it a shot.

To sum things up, my short and fragmented running career in a few paragraphs:

Ran track and cross in high school. Went to college. Abandoned running and did usual college student stuff. Graduated from college and did the usual young professional stuff. Joined a gym at a few points. Learned that actually paying the membership fee isn’t enough if you want results. What a rip. Started C25K a few times. Gave up a few times.