Going bush and doing the demo

Yesterday, Chuck and I raced the Xterra Bear Creek Mountain Resort 21km Trail Run. This race was a part of the Philly Trail Run series.
This year, we decided to jump in a few trail races and see what the whole trail running thing is all about. Imagine, 25% climbs and the longest was 30 minutes! Single track, boulders, rocks, tree roots and everything else that exists in the woods. 70% of this was uphill!
I don’t consider myself a “trail runner” although my husband has done the JFK 50 mile trail race in his “youthful, bashful days” I do consider his skills to be better than mine!
The biggest obstacle is staying on your feet, keeping your head up and still navigating ahead, holding a water bottle and breathing!
After 5 miles I hit the boulders big time and landed on my dear shins, rolled on to my hip and then my shoulder. I wiped the blood from my legs, grabbed my husband’s hand and soldiered on. Two miles later, he hit the deck rolled over and was up and ready to go before I realised he fell. What a stud.
One big thing I found with racing on the trails is you need to lift your legs all the time and this was hard towards the end as you are getting tired but funnily enough enjoying something spectacular. I looked back at some point and 16 people were running behind Chuck and I. It was too cool.
I think I am getting this whole trail running thing, heck we do live on the Horse Shoe Trail so we must be locals, right?
Solid performance from Chuck, my wingman. Thanks to him I managed to keep going and finish second to a very impressive Brooks Team runner from Virginia. She was the real deal. The shin pads, the trail shoes. We raced in road flats, looked like road runners and decided we will need to address that and pitch in for some real shoes.
Next up.. a 50k trail race. Yes, my first Ultra. It’s like something out of a Jack Kerouac novel. Definitely, one of my favorite writers.
We ended the day down at our studio doing some demo work and hammering a few walls down. My Mum even helped. Snapping pics at the race, I was surprised on how well the pics turned out. She was nervous and like every race cheering me on. Well, the two of us now. Her comment was ” It is a little different to watching you bike race in France?” But I think she gets the whole challenge thing. Being an athlete herself in her day she knows we all need a challenge and sometimes our challenges can be different. Mine.. running up a mountain, yeah!
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