Trail Running Blog

Much-Delayed, Post 4-Cities Run

There has been a long delay in posts, but hopefully I will be more diligent about being more consistent with these posts. So here goes..

Sunday, January 6, 2002
Workout: easy/recovery to Camino
Time: pretty fast (5:50-6:00 last mile) Weather: sunny, warm

At the beginning of the run on the trail, I wasn’t sore like some other runners from the 4-Cities Run, so I went a little faster with Ray. He told me it was going to be a hard run, so I wasn’t surprised at the pace he was running at. I also had in mind the day before, the really bad run that I didn’t even finish. However, I finished up before Ray, but just by a little. We started running back and caught up to another runner at Longden (he already ran and went again to Longden). So the three of us ran back and at Live Oak, Frank asked if we were going to run a killer last mile. I said no, but Ray gave no response. I knew what he was thinking though. Frank and Ray ran together while I straggled behind and ran next to them, dying. But at about the wood intersections, I began falling back and when we went down the hill at the finish, I was going so slow it took a while to finish. But I started to pick it up near the end, and it reminded me of other races I have ran. I would always kick at the end (when it was pretty much useless). I still finished behind Frank and Ray, but not as far back as I thought I would be. So this run sort of made up for yesterday’s disappointment of a run.