An amazing day from start to finish!

I just arrived home from my race and it was the best race I've done this year. The race was a 10K trail and I entered the 6 hour portion of it. Basically I ran as far as I could for 6 hours and at the end my distance was measure, but back to that in a moment.

I felt very strong throughout the race and was even able to turn on the jets at various points. Normally I would hold back some but today I wanted to let it all out and see what I was capable of doing.

The first two loops were amazing and I felt stronger and stronger as the race went on. I probably went out a little two fast because by the end of third loop I was feeling a little gassed. A friend and very good trail runner passed me at one point and that's when I really turned it on. I was very motivated to not let him beat me so I took off after him and eventually passed him at the end of the fourth loop (40K).

He also was motivated and eventually he passed me once again and this time he was at least 20 minutes ahead of me. I figured that there was no way I was going to catch him but I continued to run at my pace. To my amazement I eventually caught him once again and this time I wasn't going to let him catch me. I really dug down deep and finished the 5th loop (50K).

I had about 30 minutes left to go in the race and the race was marked every 2.5K. I knew that I was going to get to at least the 52.5 mark so I pushed it again. I reached the 52.5K mark with 12 minutes left in the race. Unfortunately that didn't leave me enough time to get to the next checkpoint so I decided to stop there. I knew that I would have gotten at least another 1 and possible 2 K so I was very happy with my accomplishments.

I knew that I had given everything I had and my legs were cramping as a result. The weather started out nice for the first 2 hours but then it rained for the rest of the race.

As they announced the overall winner and age category winners I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had finished 3rd in my age category. Beyond that, though, I knew that I had run the best race of the season so I was very proud of that accomplishment.

My legs are a little tender but overall not too bad. I will be doing a light recovery run tomorrow morning just to get the blood circulating again, and then it's time to start training for my next race in September.