Stop the presses, I did something amazing today!

Last night I met some friends at a great local restaurant (a little pricey, but heck, I never go out to eat, and this was some good food -- Mongolian barbecue style where you pick what you want stir fried together and they do it for you).

Anyway, someone there convinced me to participate in a 7.45 (or is it 7.6? Not sure!) mile Trail Run called the Siberian Express in a nearby state park. This race is done the first Saturday in January, no matter WHAT the weather. So given that it's usually below 0 windchill with snow on the ground this time of year, I think we lucked out with it being in the 40s and bright and sunny today.

Wow. So one of the tag lines about this 7.45 mile trail race that I just completed is "No Wimps!"

No Wimps? No kidding! My body hates me right now.

I had never done a trail race and I didn't know what to expect. I was told it was easy except for one famous hill. Well, there were a whole hell of a lot of hills, but none so bad as the One Hill.

Kickapoo Park is amazing in its beauty. It really is a gem, and only about a 30 minute drive from where I live. I started with my friend, but I told her NOT to wait for me because I was not really in any kind of shape to run 7.45 miles, much less on rough trails without doing some major walking along the way at some points. However, I LOVED this experience of trail running. I ran along this trail with a sappy smile on my face, just really taking in the scenery, really appreciating it -- the river, the ponds, the meadows, the woods, the ravines. About 4 miles into it, The One Hill came up. I was afraid. It was the first time I got a little freaky-deaky. The trail at this point was about 1 foot across and muddy and very slippery -- with a big 50 foot or so drop off on the side. I refused to look down, but just focused on crawling in the mud on hands and knees, grabbing for tree roots and hoping the person in front of me didn't slip and take us all down. When I reached the top, I had this HUGE GIDDINESS go over me that I had done that. I hadn't freaked out or frozen. I was badass.

I did have to stop and walk a few times, for sure. Trail running is NOT like running on a treadmill or even on regular sidewalks/streets. It's a lot harder. But the challenge of it and the scenery and the need to pay attention to where your feet are falling so you don't fall or slip is really a good distraction. My goal was to finish in under 2 hours, and I did finish 1:43! So not bad, considering I did stop and walk multiple times, sometimes very slowly to deal with slippery mud, and I did have to crawl on hands and knees a few times to navigate dicey parts of the trail!