Grasslands Half Marathon

The weather was the race this year. March 20 turned out to have freezing temps, hail, pouring rain, snow, red mud, black mud, green mud, gray mud, brown mud, mud, mud, mud. I had done the triathlon the weekend before and then it was spring break which was also a recovery week for my training. By the time Friday night rolled around I was doing push-ups and sit-ups like a crazy woman in my living room I was so antsy and wound-up from the time off. Poor Evan, I was seriously going crazy I had so much energy. Needless to say, no amount of rain or mud was going to stop me from running on Saturday.

Until the last mile (which was hell), I don't know if I've ever had so much fun running. The terrain was just ridiculous. The only way I could figure out how to run uphill in the mud was to pretend I had on cross-country skis and wedge my way up. Going down I would just dig my heels in and go as fast as I could handle. It was so fun. The fact that I had so much energy to expend really helped my optimistic mood and the other runners and volunteers were just amazing. Beth and Diana did this race with me also and everything is just more fun when the two of them are around.

At one point we realized we had gone the wrong way and a group of us helped each other jump barbed wire. I LOVE TRAIL RUNNING!! Man, this crazy race is the epitome of why I love running. I just loved being around all the other runners who didn't think twice about driving in the pitch black early morning, to the middle of nowhere, to run in the freezing mud.

Thanks to the amount of DNS and DNF (did not show, did not finish) participants, Beth, Diana and I all placed in the top 10 women overall for the Half Marathon. I was 7th. I wonder what the weather will be like next year? : )