My First Organized Race!

I've never been much of a runner, but I love mountainbiking, hiking, hunting, etc. So the wife ran a road 4-miler a month back, her first race, and inspired me. We found a local trail race, the Blue Ridge Burn, and entered. She ran the 5k loop and I ran the 10k loop. I trained for a month or so, coming home at lunch to run the relatively flat trails near our house...but like I said, I'm not much of a runner. I keep myself in good shape, but I'm more of a gym rat. My best time for a 10k on the practice trails was 62 mins. Ugh. I wanted to break an hour.

So, on Saturday, after waking up three times to different dreams of me oversleeping and missing the race, we show up on time and get into it. Walnut Creek is awesome, I've biked it before, but never run it...regardless, I know it's mountainous. The first leg...holy crap. It was all uphill. Like, up a mountain. But I stuck it out, and thought I was gonna die at the top. No worries. I never slowed to a walk the whole time. Made it to the end, and had no clue how I did until after the awards. Checked my time...50:02, roughly 8 minute miles!!! I was floored. I ended up 15th overall, out of a whole sh*tload of people, maybe a few hundred. For not being a runner, and never having run a race before, I still can't believe I placed in the top 20.

I gotta say thanks to fellow HBT runners for your advice. My Puma Trailfoxes got me through the slick terrain perfectly...and my training regime that you let me in on really helped (not to mention the jelly belly sport beans!). So, really, thank you for your help.

Congrats Evan! Sounds like you kicked ass!

I want to do a couple 5k runs next year, if I can get my ass back in shape in time.

Dude, that's awesome. Here's to the good race!

Thanks! I was surprised at how the adrenaline kicks in when you've got dudes breathing down your neck and other guys ahead of you leaving you behind. After awhile you just suppress the pain in your lungs and kick it into 5th gear because you can't let anyone else pass ya.

Evan! said:

Thanks! I was surprised at how the adrenaline kicks in when you've got dudes breathing down your neck and other guys ahead of you leaving you behind. After awhile you just suppress the pain in your lungs and kick it into 5th gear because you can't let anyone else pass ya.

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Adrenaline does wonderer's. In my first 100K bike race I averaged 3 1/2 MPH faster than my training rides. Good job on the run.