Friday, January 2, 2009

Trail running first attempt

Happy New Year! To get the year off on a good foot, Becky and I planned a run yesterday. We ended up hitting a trail at Shelby Farms with one of Becky's friends, Erin. We have signed up for the MRTC Cross Country Series, which starts in about a week, and Becky had the very good idea that it would not be best for us to do our first trail run at a race.

So, I crawled out of bed at 9am with an almost hangover. I say almost because there was no extensive time in the bathroom or massive headache, just a kind of general feeling of ickiness. That was thanks to a Newcastle, two cosmos, way too much junk food, and not leaving a party until 3:30am.

I wasn't sure how the run would go since I haven't done much of anything since the half marathon. We took it slow, and walked a few times when we wanted a break. I found the trail running to be much easier than road running, and more...fun. There could be many reasons: it is quiet, you have to be very aware of your surroundings, the ground is springy and helps you kick up your feet, and it's just something different. Part of the trail was on a raised bit of land between two creeks, and both creeks had a beautiful thin sheet of ice covering them. Another bit went by what we think is the Wolf River. We saw a couple groups of runners, bikers and walkers, some who were serious and had on team training uniforms and others who were just out for the first walk of 2009.

I only face planted once : ) A root caught my right foot and I dove to the ground, sliding on my right side as if I was going after a volleyball. Just a bit of mud, and this morning some soreness in my neck from the jolt.

Overall we had a nice time outside getting back into running and celbrating the new year : )

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