Well, the back to back race weekend is over, and I have to say it's a SUCCESS! The girls did an awesome job kicking some asphalt and some dirt. Well, some of the dirt kicked back (poor Linda!), but that didn't stop us at all.
Notable this weekend:
- Maggie took First in the "older than dirt" age category at the She Rocks Trails 4 miler today. It was a super competitive category. Being a small race (less than 60 women), there weren't many beginners out there. I was in the same age category, and I finished 20 out of 24. She was also 5th overall. She scored a nifty She Rocks Trails sweatshirt and a plaque for her efforts. She also beat her archrival "M" by about 2 minutes, so that was an awesome day for her all around!
- Linda and I BOTH scored PRs at the 2008 Tiger Trot 5k. Linda came in at 36:47 -smashing through that 37:00 goal for her. I'm not sure if the loud, off-key and wrong lyrics singing of show tunes for that last half mile made her run faster or not, but she didn't quit!
For the She Rocks Trails event, it was a blast. This was the first official trail race for both Linda & I, and we went with more than a little bit of nerves. We'd run the James River parks trails all of twice, and the thought of 4 miles over unknown trails was a little stomach twisting. We got there right AT 7:00 (following the Dee rule of getting to the race waaay earlier than necessary) and were the first checked in. I have to say that the tshirt got cute points (it's their logo, but I like the simpler shirts than the fruity tooty shirts anyway), and having Luna as an official sponsor gave us yummy Luna treats in the bag. Maggie got both a Luna lipbalm AND recovery drink, I got the recovery drink, and Linda got Luna Moons. Surprise surprise!
Negative points to the start time. I know it was a small race, but if the race start time is 8:00, let's start at 8:00, not at 8:15 people. It was COLD out there waiting for the start, and the extra 15 minutes hanging around didn't help matters. So off we went single-file through the woods.
I'm really proud of myself for picking my feet up and not tripping at ALL. I was churning along through the woods, back & forth through the 6 ft deep gully three times in a row (who's sick joke was that), then the Luftwaffe launched a Blitzkrieg. Yep. I'm running along, hear a big bug on my right that loops around to my left, and before I could finish thinking "oh great, biting flies" that jerk STUNG me with no warning at all! I shrieked like a little kid, ran few more steps and pulled off the trail to inspect the damage and make sure I didn't have a stinger embedded in me. One of the Luna Chicks realized I was stung and pulled over to help me out. No stinger, just hurt like the dickens.
See, a couple months ago, we watched a History Channel special on the Luftwaffe vs. the big B-52 American bombers. It was full of footage showing how the fighters would buzz around the lumbering B-52s trying to get a shot in. So today I was the B-52 and the hornet was the Luftwaffe. I can only hope it was the kind of sting that killed the
So needless to say the middle two miles were not the fastest for me. Apparently I'm a little sensitive to the venom - I haven't been stung in decades cause I am paranoid - and it was a miserable afternoon having some sort of muscle reaction to the venom. I found a medical article that said to take antihistamines, so after a long Benedryl-induced nap, I felt functional again. In case you didn't notice, this is my inner drama queen looking for some pity. Woe is me! I got stung! *sniff* You can send me flowers and get well balloons if you want to (please).
Linda had an unfortunate encounter with some roots and tore up her knee, but it wasn't as nasty as it looked when she crossed the finish line. Hopefully it's not bruised too badly, and she gets super credits for gutting out the rest of the run. Hmmm - Maggie is the only one who didn't get injured and she won the age category. Maybe that's the trick!!
Linda leaves for Taiwan tomorrow, so she'll have plenty of time to heal, but we are all hoping that her Garmin works in Taiwan (why wouldn't it??) and we are looking forward to seeing her Garmin / Google Earth uplinks from her runs in Taiwan. Have a great time, Linda!
But overall it was a blast and I'd actually do it again. There's a 8k on May 3, 2009, so maybe I'll be back to challenge the trails one more time!
1 comments:
I loved this story- it totally made me laugh out loud (only because you were all OK). I particularly enjoyed the allusion to the German Lutwaffe... Congrats on the PR's!
Post a Comment