Buck Ridge Burn Trail Half Marathon Race Report

We've been putting in lots of training miles lately..both road and trail and figured this would be easy.  I mean, 13 miles?  Piece of cake.  Except we forgot there's a big hill pretty close to right off the bat.

By mile 3 I had to walk for the first time once I got about 3/4 of the way up a hill that seemed never ending.  We had done this same part of the trail 2 weeks ago, and I guess I'd forgotten already how steep it was!  Once that was done, there was some nice wide grassy sections to run, as well as a fun single track section called "the loop"  - my favorite part of the whole run!  After that there was some rolling hills and a not so fun run down a leaf and rock covered descent the race director told us at the start was dubbed "the s.o.b."  She wasn't kidding!  My quads were burning from holding back from running and my left foot was my stabilizer so my toes were screaming at me to find level ground.  Then it was some more grassy little hills and finally a climb up a gravel covered fire road.  I didn't mind the fire road, but the large gravel was a little unwieldy under tired feet.

One more largish hill and we were getting close to the end.  I knew I wasn't going to beat my road pace of 2:38 from my first "real" run from 3 years ago but at least I was feeling strong, and moving good.  Hmmm...amazing how that can all change in an instant!  Barreling down a nice fast, clear descent, my right shoe caught an exposed root/limb and twisted, flinging me down hard on the ground.  My left leg is pretty beat up with scuffs and bruises and my right ankle's a bit sore but otherwise, no worse for the wear.  Took me a second to catch my breath, quell the nausea from that shot of adrenaline and I was up again running.  Enjoyed the coolness of the creek crossing with a little mountain stream water on my feet then finished up the last mile and half feeling pretty good.

2:47:24 was my official time and I'm okay with that.  Almost 1600 feet of climbing is a bit different than my original 2:38 I was trying to beat.  And this race has the distinction of being my first trail race.  I've done lots of trail running but missed out on what was supposed to be my first trail race in February because of a nasty flu bug.  So, this was my "make up" race.

I would be lying if I didn't say this race made me a little leery of my trail marathon looming on the horizon April 28th.  I mean, if someone had told me when I finished today that it was time to head back out and do it again, I might have cried.  Or fainted.  Or maybe, just flat out refused.  I know the terrain of White Clay is a bit more forgiving than this was but there are still hills to climb, creeks to cross and all sorts of little obstacles to trip on.  :)  Here's hoping I'm ready and the training's been hard enough!