Today was the 2nd Annual CRC Trail Race at the White Water Center in Charlotte NC, and a very cold one at that! I was looking forward to it all week. Well, not the getting up early part, but because our Triple Threat Team has alot of fun supporting and cheering on the poor souls who sign up for this race!
The 8am morning started with each of us at different water stops. Our water stop #4 included: John Behme, James Haycraft, Andrew Fletcher, and of course, me! I will have to say, I do enjoy being a cheerleader out on those beautiful trails! I love it! Jumping up and down, screaming encouraging words to the runners, and getting yelled at by my husband to shut up. It's fun and it's a good chance to spend time with old and new members of the team this year. After a couple hours of hydrating the runners and directing which way to turn, we packed up and traveled back to our warm cars.
Now the real work. Trail clean up! Most of the team members wanted to get in their own runs, whether it be 9 miles, 13 or 20 miles. I should say, Colleen Cummins was the only one doing 20! So we bundled up and laced up our trail shoes for a sticky, muddy surprise. The first 3 miles seemed to be fine for me, a nice soft bed of pine needles to cushion my feet. My legs felt rested, and I had a honey and peanut butter sandwhich fresh in my belly. Maybe the 30 minute runs 4 days a week really have helped?!
I knew it would only be a matter of time until I would start cursing the trail. Then it started to not feel as fun, the hills were tough, especially these trails. There are parts of this course that really kick your @$$! Just when you think your in good shape, you start breathing like a horse and dragging your feet! In fact, John Behme was kind enough to throw himself into a mudslide downhill to show us how tripping on the trail was done! There was no doubt we were not doing any records breaking pace, I think we were crawling at a 9:30-9:45 pace!
By the time it was an hour into the run, with stops along the way to pick up signs and caution tape, I was fading quickly! Thank god it was over in 1 hour and 13 minutes!
The best part of the day was the WWC restaurant! Mmmmm... yummy hot coffee, sweet potato waffle fries, and creamy tomato bisque soup, homemade veggie burgers, awesome beer! What a perfect ending to a long cold successful trail race! Thanks should go out to Donny Forsyth from Charlotte Running Company (huge sponsor of our 3T team!) and all of our 3T members for supporting our local runners! Hope to see all of you again for 2012!!
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