Notes
My first endurance trail race - 30k - part of the Rogue Trail Series (#1 the maze). I had not run that far in a few weeks and had very few trail miles recently so I had no expectations. The course is 3 loops in Walnut Creek park in northern Austin and had 4700ft of ascent/decent. There were the usual hills, and a couple of creek crossings per loop (feet completely submerged), mostly single track. I felt great the first loop (8:17 pace) and most of the 2nd (8:09) but I could feel the legs starting to fail. I'm used to feeling fatigue and just running through it pretty blindly in a road race, but on a trail, if my hamstring cramped up at a creek crossing, or scaling down some ravine, I could be in a world of trouble. The last loop was just me trying not to cramp up but still hold a decent pace. It helped trying to stave off some people I passed and try to catch up to someone who passed me. At about mile 12, my left achilles started screaming at me and only got worse. I would be limping later in the day due to that achilles. My last loop pace slowed to 8:45 with my last 3 miles around 9:30 - pretty much crashed and burned at the end.
Overall I had a great time and it was definitely a learning experience. Just need to nurse this achilles and get more trail miles on me.
Garmin had me at a 8:19 pace overall (18.09 miles in 2:34). Took 1 gu before and 2 more at the start of each loop.