Home where I belong!

I just completed my first trail race in 10 months and it was one of the best experiences I've had in quite some time.

I'm so proud of Kelly who finished 3rd in her age category. She did amazing for first trail race and considering it was a very technical course, her accomplishments are even more impressive.
Way to go Kelly!

As for me, I realized as soon as I got of my car that I was back with my running "family." I was greeted by so many people who all asked the same question,"where have you been?" It was nice to know that they remembered me and I assured them that I wouldn't be absent again.

The course itself was pretty technical, lots of rocks and hill climbs just as advertised. At one point I started running too fast and then remembered what my goal was. I wanted to finish the race feeling like I could run again. Since I actually AM running in the evening tonight, this was a real goal and I was very proud of myself for achieving it. I was able to stop and make sure that one of the runners was ok as she was climbing over some rocks. The fact that I wasn't at all focused on reaching a particular time, made the experience in the trails that much better.

I had several stumbles and only one fall but overall I was very happy with my performance. It was fitting that one of the songs that played on my MP3 player was "Home" by Chris Daughtry because I felt that way throughout the race today.

Rather than feeling tired and sore like I usually do after a race, I actually feel great and I'm ready to run again.
Tonight I am going to run the last 5-7K's of a race that two of my closest friends are doing (Midsummer Night's Run). I actually feel pretty good considering I just ran 32K and may want to run more than that but hopefully common sense will prevail and I'll just run a few K's with them.