And my life is just an image of a rollercoaster anyway
At the trail run last night, I was thinking about this Everything But The Girl song that a former friend sent to me a few years ago which resonated at the time. The song is great for trail running and hiking because it has an introspective and calming quality to it. Last night, I could only relate to the most literal level of the song. The trail run was like riding a rollercoaster for me. Up.. down... fast... slow... repeat... scared... done...
The race was handicapped by the most recent 5K time. So, I started in the 4th group with Polly, Jennifer, Sara, and a guy whose name I forgot, about 10 minutes behind the first group, and I'm guessing we were 2-3 minutes in front of the final group.
Bob Reynolds laid out an awesome course for this race. I will try to post a course map up on the blog at some point. The first half were on trails around the Cresheim Valley that I haven't done before. It featured the usual Wissahickon scenery and also creek crossing, rock climbing, running on pipes, sharp turns, and hills after hills. For whatever reason, I was pretty good on the uphills last night, and it was enough to make up for my usual slowness (or just lack of confidence, but for good reasons) at the downhills.
Because of the handicapping, there was more racing going on than usual and also much more passing. Some of the people who started after us caught up and went ahead, but I was also able to make up ground on a few who started us. Apparently, I was the first woman to cross the finish line.
Mind you, I wasn't the fastest out there because I had a 2 minute headstart on the other fast girls. But who cares? It was just for fun. I won a half gallon of gatorade and a CD by a member of the club :)
Noah came down to hang out after the race, and we had some free drinks and food at the Valley Green Inn with a bunch of club people. Ended up talking to Chris at the bar for the while and learning various quirks of other runners. Maybe it was the beer, or the endorphins, but everything seemed funny.
Tonight, figuring that the course markers would still be around, I went back and did the trails again. Aside from almost spraining my left ankle, it was another good run.
