Fall Colors Half Marathon

I love fall. The changing of the leaves; the cooler, rainy weather; and the coming of the holidays. Even though I’m writing this a few months late, I still can’t wait until next fall.

As I finished my last half, I received a flier for this one. I looked at a few pictures and figured this would be a great run to do before our trip to Egypt. Plus I had never ran a trail run before, so I thought it would be fun. I even suckered Ron, Jason, and Rob to run it with me. … and as soon as race day came along, they were suckers indeed.

We had a few good training runs prior to this, even running 14 miles around the Caughlin/Plateau/Skyline area to help train, but nothing could get prep us for race day.

I woke up on racing day a bit nervous: it was pouring rain; it was windy, and there didn’t look to be any stop in sight. Great.

We drove out to the trail, mud everywhere, and the much anticipated “gun” went off. Only about 60 people had the courage to show up for the race.  But soon the rain and the cold disappeared from my head as we began to climb the hills and dart down the paths.

And within 150 minutes, I posted my worst time for a half marathon, but what an experience; it was a great run. We hopped around rocks to get over streams; we were inspired by the colors while pushing ourselves up more than 2500 feet; and I didn’t even get lost in the sometimes lonely path.

And now I think I’ve converted to running mainly trail runs. I’m hooked.

[flickr-gallery mode="photoset" photoset="72157625569136401"]