Tread Brightly Trail ½ marathon Race Recap

I pushed my Hoka blue feet back in to my Hoka Evos, and I headed toward the starting line to shake out my legs before race start.

Dark clouds and steady drizzle had settled over the area. On the other hand, the weather was much cooler than last night.

Looking around at the starting line, I only saw 3 blue bibs and lots of red bibs. Meaning, there were only 3 of us doing the double. The rest showed just to do the race this morning. I knew I was in trouble.

All of those fresh legs took off right from the start, and they gapped us by several hundred yards by the mile point.

Paul, Cody, and I settled in to a nice little group and were chatting back and forth to make the miles go by faster.

Cody picked up the pace heading in to thread, and soon just Paul and I were running together. By the time we reached the power line section the drizzle had turned to a steady down pour of rain. My legs felt heavy and slow despite the cooler weather.

Paul pulled away from me on the backside of the thread trail because I was having a bad spot during that section of the course. I grabbed some water at an aid which helped. With Paul out of sight, I was solo to the finish. . On top of the ridge of the North Main trail, I saw a couple of guys coming up behind me but neither caught me by the finish.

I finished 11^th overall in 2:07:16. I am still puzzled how I ran nearly 5 minutes faster in this race when I actually felt worse. I really felt like I was running so much slower.

My 11^th place finish put me first in my age but more importantly, I finished 2^nd in the Treadmeister category. This is weighted category for runners competing on both days. Paul took home the first place in this division.

I really like these cool little challenges. They offer some different to the normal race routine. 

Lastly, kudos the WWC Race series crew. They dealt with some rainy and muddy conditions. Yet, they were out there with smiling faces to help each of us runners have a successful race. My hat is off to all of them.

Tail Dust Tails

The Cool Down Runner