Muddy, rainy, dirty!

And cold!!!  This was all part of my first cross country running experience!  This past Sunday I participated in the Taylor Creek 5km XC race as part of the Ontario Masters Athletics (OMA) series.  Unfortunately, I was working nights on both Saturday and Sunday which meant I was racing in between my 12-hr night shifts!  Not ideal!  Especially with the shifts that I had....no sleep break for me! Boo!  It was quite busy!  But I always surprise myself as to how much I can push my body!

Sunday morning I rode my bike home from work in the pouring rain and I started to worry about the race.  I do not own spikes and even though the course is suitable for flats I wasn't sure if this was still the case in the rain.  So I sent out an email in the morning wondering if I did in fact need spikes or if this would be a good excuse to bail on the run and stay home and sleep.  I was honestly thinking of bailing!  I tried to sleep for a couple of hours but it wasn't the greatest.  I woke up at about 11am and went anyway without spikes and hoped for the best.  It was very rainy and cold and quite suitable to stay in bed! Ha!  Got to the race site and saw the Nachos which was nice and other members of the UTTC.  We were warned that the course was quite muddy and to be careful out there.  I drank a Redbull shot about 15min before the race in an attempt to wake my body up.

I was given advise from a few people when they found out this was my first XC run and all of them told me to not go out too hard.  So I did exactly that.  I went out at a comfortable pace, not easy but not balls to the wall either.  Got to the first downhill and almost wiped out.  I quickly learned this was a whole other world of running.  There is a whole different skill set to this and I had no idea what I was doing! Lol!  I got passed big time on the downhill as I was taking it cautiously.  Then the mud run began.  Every corner I was losing my footing, I was slipping and sliding, almost lost my shoe at one point and even turned my ankle and almost fell as I quickly gained my balance.  All I could think about was next weekend and Chicago and not wanting to do anything silly out there.  So I held back and made sure I did not injure myself trying to go faster.  It wasn't worth it for me.  Next time I'll be more aggressive but not that day.  So I stayed behind my teammate Duncan and followed his line!  Thanks Duncan!!!  When he ran right through the middle of the muddles, so did I.  If he took a corner wider I tried to do the same.  That was a huge help to run behind him.  And let me mention he is many years my senior and is an absolutely incredible runner!!!!  I truly admire him and my other teammates who are all incredible runners!  I hope to learn lots from them the more I train with the club.

I completed the 5km in 25:42 as I kicked it up in high gear at the end as someone else was chasing me down. The Nachos were yelling at me letting me know I was being chased and egged me on to go faster.  She did not catch me but apparently she was really hoofing it and I was afraid to look back to see how close she was.  I was hoping to run this in under 25min so I was just short.  The team I was on (W30) came in 2nd and UTTC as a whole also came in 2nd.  Not incredibly pleased with my time but again this was not road running and I found it to be technical.  I did have fun out there even in the rain and cold.  I am looking forward to getting a pair of spikes and trying this again and try to go even harder.