Saturday marked the fourth 10k of my Project 2010k. I did a trail race with "bonus mileage" which meant the run was 6.6 miles rather than the customary 6.2 miles for a 10k. The location was a rather large group of hills. Believe me, I went up and down pretty much all of them. The photo at right shows the tiny-stuff in the background, which of course was down below where I had begun.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and I appreciated the moments of shade (only a mile was straight and shady.) The downhills were exhilarating, although there were points that were super-steep so I nearly side-stepped down them rather than attempting to fly.
Some of the uphills made me question WHY DO I DO THIS? but of course the resulting views were an excellent reward.
What goes up:
Thankfully comes back down:
(Photos by some excellent race volunteers - taken from the most easily-accessible points of the course, so these example hills are actually pretty mild as compared to some of the steep stuff we did.)
The first mile climbed to the near-peak of the group of hills. The next half-mile went down quickly. Then about a mile and a half gently rolled, another two miles climbed steeply, and then we played "let's go up, let's go down!" for a bit before making our final thrilling decent.
Thankfully I didn't feel completely broken afterwords, although I was a tad sore. In a few days I'll be running three legs of approx 6 miles apiece during "The Relay" for Eat. Blog. Run. I'm definitely a bit nervous, but know I can handle it, as long as I don't attempt to run in pearls, pumps, and a sweater set.
A couple weeks later I'll take on San Francisco's kooky Bay to Breakers race. Since I don't have a standard 10k scheduled for May, I'll say that Bay to Breakers - which is a 12k - will "count" towards my Project 2010k. Either that, or I can say that my Eat. Blog. Run. performance will qualify me for some sort of triple-ten, since I'll be doing three legs of approximately 10k. My exact legs are 5.6, 6.5, and 6.3 miles, for a total of 18.4 miles, but then I'll run part of the finish with the whole team, so let's just pretend it is 18.6 for the 10k-triple.
But for now, instead of rattling off what I hope to do, I'm pretty glad with what I've done thus far. Saturday's race was a challenge - as always - but finishing was sweet!
Comments (1)
You are the awesome, lady.
Posted by mayberry | April 28, 2010 7:28 AM
Posted on April 28, 2010 07:28