I had a memorable 10K trail race today...my 4th trail race so far...every one completely different from the other. This one was very twisty-turny and primarily up or down, with little in between. Most of the grade was about 20%, with some around 25 to 30%. I power hiked a fair bit and there were some bits of downhill where I had to step sideways and sometimes hang on to something like a tree to make it down safely. I didn't get much of a warmup due to a conflicting need to use the PortaPotty Then the start was delayed for a news update on sale of the land, which further "cooled" me back down. So, once we started running, my breathing naturally got out of hand pretty quickly and I had a sideache for about the middle third of the race. The downhills were the hardest for me to breathe  in a regular controlled fashion. About halfway through my legs were pretty tired and I opted to fall back and get my breathing under control and just run comfortably.

It took me an hour and 11 minutes. I was quite pleased that they had taken extra effort to mark the course this time.  I probably ran a third of it without anyone around me and had not trouble following the route...whew! I came in 45th out of 80 finishers.

So...not the finish time I would have liked; but no mishaps and gained valuable trail racing experience.

I also got a pair of Smartwool PhD running socks in the raffle.

Great race report Happy.  Glad your injuries haven't thrown you off your game.  I'm always amazed at all of the running form stuff you are able to think about while you running.  All I can manage is left/right.  If I try to think any deeper than that I either trip or lose control of my pace.  I'm so proud of your steady mileage this year.

I've caught the trail bug a bit too.  As motivation to keep running through the hot summer, I signed up for a 15 week trail running program.  Basically, I'm paying $100 so that someone will make sure there is water when I need it.  Three weeks in and things are going well. Runs are about two hours and we'll top out at 4.5 hours. We run in Percy Warner Park, home of the infamous Flying Monkey Marathon and the trails are steeper than the roads that the Monkey runs on.  Beautiful country, great trails, only a couple of really technical sections.  And its extremely shady so even though we've been fighting the mid-100s like everyone else, these runs haven't been nearly as bad as running the roads would have been.

To top it off, after a great run Saturday, I registered for the StumpJump 50K.  Have I ever run a 50K? Nope.  A trail race? Nope.  A race with really steep hills (the race has 5000ft of elevation gain)? Nope.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I ran a beautiful marathon in Vermont Sunday--the Mad Marathon near Sugarbush, VT. Wow, what a beautiful setting and WOW, THE HILLS! Yikes, it was really hilly. I ran really easy the first half then ramped it up, especially the last 10k. 2:07/1:52 split! This was a hill training run for Tahoe in 2 weeks, and a good one!

Sounds like a nice run Happy.  And a good time for a trail 10km.  Funny, I have never really thought about my breathing, maybe I should :-)

 

6.5km trail run for me today.  Ankle came away good, but there were a couple of "hope this doesn't hurt" moments.  Some nasty steep uphills, following by some really nice sweeping downhills. Took my son out and he mountain biked for the first time on single track.  Little bit nervous at first but soon got the hang of it and would end up waiting at the bottom of the hill for me.

 

On leave for rest of week (school holidays), so planning to get out there again later in the week

 I'm glad your ankle did well on the trail run - whew! Did you have any swelling that night?  It sounds like your son had fun on his new adventure into mountain biking. What a good dad you are.

About the breathing thing - It came up for me because in a race situation this past year, I felt like my legs had plenty of "go" but I was attacked by a side ache.  In training runs, I'd try to go faster than usual and feel I couldn't get enough air. The side ache in races became a recurring theme.  So I found out that one solution was to do a warmup jog of about a mile or so at a slow pace to get my body primed so to speak, before trying to run with any kind of speed.  This works well for the road. Another piece of the puzzle was to breathe as deeply as possible at a regular rate as compared to rapid short breaths. I've found this is pretty much impossible on a challenging downhill trail. The final piece of the puzzle is posture (so typical for me - doesn't it always come down to posture?). Chin up, head level, chest out, shoulders down - give the lungs room to expand. I notice a dramatic difference when I'm  running not doing this, feeling the limitation, adjust my posture and wow the running is so much easier.  I found yesterday that this is not such an easy technique to work on in a trail race.

Great race report Happy.  Glad your injuries haven't thrown you off your game.  I'm always amazed at all of the running form stuff you are able to think about while you running.  All I can manage is left/right.  If I try to think any deeper than that I either trip or lose control of my pace.  I'm so proud of your steady mileage this year.

 

I've caught the trail bug a bit too.  As motivation to keep running through the hot summer, I signed up for a 15 week trail running program.  Basically, I'm paying $100 so that someone will make sure there is water when I need it.  Three weeks in and things are going well. Runs are about two hours and we'll top out at 4.5 hours. We run in Percy Warner Park, home of the infamous Flying Monkey Marathon and the trails are steeper than the roads that the Monkey runs on.  Beautiful country, great trails, only a couple of really technical sections.  And its extremely shady so even though we've been fighting the mid-100s like everyone else, these runs haven't been nearly as bad as running the roads would have been.

 

To top it off, after a great run Saturday, I registered for the StumpJump 50K.  Have I ever run a 50K? Nope.  A trail race? Nope.  A race with really steep hills (the race has 5000ft of elevation gain)? Nope.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Aww thanks Brian. Your comments mean a lot to me.   They really do.

You probably have naturally perfect running form anyway and don't need to think about it.

I, on the other hand, was never athletic or particularly coordinated as a child. I took up running and yoga as a young adult  because I enjoyed them and they didn't require any prerequisite skills.  As I get older, I find more adjustments are needed if I want to accomplish my goals.  And really it's only now that I have running goals. I never did when I was younger. I ran races that I couldn't tell you their names or my times. Everything was for fun then. I never kept a running log for the first 10 years or so. Now I love logging the miles and trying to improve.

Your trail running program sounds wonderful! I'm so jealous! 

The StumpJump! What a great name! Sounds like a survival race if there ever was one. When is it?

Happiness is ordering a couple pairs of running shoes for half price!

Up in Chicago visiting my older son and got in 12 along the Lake this morning.  It was supposed to be 10, but I got lost (again).  I missed the bridge to get across Lakeshore Dr. and kept going thinking, it must be just ahead.  A mile later there was a tunnel and I was able to cross and start heading back. No, I did not consider turning around and retracing my steps as that would have meant admitting I didn't know what I was doing.

There were huge groups of people out doing training for the Chicago 1/2 Marathon.  Fleet Feet had "hydration stations" set up that were bigger than most races I've run. Fun to be out in that kind of a crowd.