How about a little mud?

Yes I ran a cross country race this weekend, but that does not mean I enjoyed it.  It was TOUGH and MUDDY, but let me start at the beginning.

After arriving at the race course on Saturday morning, I met up with the girls running the race.  We have a bunch of women who are in the open division (19-39 yrs old) but most of the fast girls were running in another XC race on Sunday so they needed some girls to take their places.  That is the only reason I ran this race - for the team.

Guess I missed the memo to wear my hot shorts instead of capris.

It was a chilly 45F at the start and I was freezing my butt off waiting for the gun to go off.  I had a goal of just trying to stay with one of the faster girls.  She is more experienced with XC races and so I thought that if I could stick with her then I would do well.

I also promised myself that I would NOT look at my garmin during the race.  I knew that would psych me out if I looked at my garmin and saw that my pace had dropped because of the mud or a hill.  I decided that I would go off of my "perceived effort" and just go as fast as I could for as long as I could.

Soon we were off and running across the open field.  And then I hit the mud and it was so hard to go fast in the squishy, muddy grass.  I was not happy already with the race and running and I wanted to be done but I still had a long way to go.

I rolled through the first mile in just over 7 minutes which was way too fast considering we had two hilly climbs in the first mile.  My legs were on fire and I was already tired.  I couldn't resist so I looked at my garmin to check my pace and was pleasantly surprised.  I pushed on and headed into the second mile and also the longest hill.

I knew that Brian was out on the course as a marshal but I had no idea where he was.  I also had no idea where the two mile marker was so I just kept pushing on.  I hit an especially muddy area and just got frustrated that I could not get solid footing on the ground.  When I finally came out of the mud soaked section, I rounded a corner and saw Brian.  I must have had an extreme death face on because he stopped mid cheer and became quiet and just clapped for me. I just wanted the race to be over.

The next section was probably the easiest with only a few muddy sections and a small hill.  I resisted the urge to look at my garmin and just pushed on.  Finally I rounded the last corner into the final straightaway to the finish.  The clock was in sight and I saw it had just ticked over into 22 minutes.  I was shocked - I thought I would finish so much slower.

My final time, unofficially by my gamin was 22:35 and I was pretty happy with that.  It was a tough, muddy course and although I hated almost every second of this race, I knew that it just made me stronger as a runner. 

After the race, I became aware of how much mud I had managed to get on myself.  Good thing I wore my old Brooks shoes!  Here is a picture of my shoes before the race:

 And this is my shoes and the back of my legs after the race:

And my shoes after the race:

Ugg I hate mud.  I don't think my old brooks will ever look the same.  Overall it was a good race - I guess I always say that post race.  Our team ended up winning the race which was an added bonus.

Official results:
Time: 22:34
Place: 28/36
Female: 7/11