every hill ever. some with mud.

so the thing about trail races with serious elevation changes is... no, there are two things.

one is that running uphill, sometimes, is actually worse for your time than power walking. the other one is that if you have run uphill, you gotta run down, which means those "screaming" descents mentioned in a previous post about this race series.

both of these things were very relevant to today's race. the ups were -- ok, they were patently crazy. there is this one big hill, just a damn dirt cliff, that the trail went up and then immediately down THREE times. like the race director had gotten a trail stutter. and in the last 4k, there was a ton of short very steep ups and downs. and by the time we got there (well, when i did) the rain had started and the downhills were sliiiick. twice i literally had to grab onto a tree and spin around to a stop, or i would have mudslid to a twisted ankle (at least). (if those first three cliffs had been similarly muddy, i think they would have had to stop the race. it had no trees.)

and the thing about the power walking is that after having to choose this route for those early cliffs (they were around 4 to 6k, and the whole thing was 13.5)... it was really hard to get my head back into the game for running up other hills. i did more of it than many other people in my cohort, but it was still definitely more walking than two years ago on this course. ... is that good? i feel like i barely worked right now, but maybe tomorrow my legs will fall off?

results will be up ina couple days, but i think it must have taken me more than an hour and a half, maybe 1:40 or 1:45, which should tell you a lot about the mud and the hills. it was damn hard, but i am fairly pleased with my perseverance. less with my downhill running, which is pretty pathetic -- i run up those hills beating much stronger men, and then we get to the top of a cliff and they somehow pound/fly past me down it!

k, so. back soon with more training thoughts.