First race of the year!  I picked this one because I wanted a short race before my first half marathon and it looked like a lot of fun.  I’ve never done a trail race before and got all excited after I watched a late-night showing of the XTERRA North American Championship.  And I hadn’t raced in about four months.

Race day was cloudy and chilly, but not too bad once I got moving.  There was a great turnout but not so many people to be overwhelming.  The 15k-ers went off first and then we were off!  Deep down, I knew I was going to start off too fast and regret it about 25/30min into the race.  The first half mile was on a paved road, so I was just having a blast passing everyone!  I had a great position going onto the trail and was even 4th or 5th female!  Passed a couple more people as the trail wound on (which was blowing my mind….I never pass people!!) but, sure enough, about 3ish miles in, I ran out of juice.  The last mile comprised of several walk breaks and a per mile pace that was considerably slower than I wanted.

I ended up finishing in 37:04 which I was pretty happy with.  If I average anything faster than a 10:00 mile pace, I’m pretty stoked.  Even though I slowed down considerably the last mile, I had built up enough of a lead to place 1st in my age group and 4th overall female.  I was super pumped about the result, but not happy with my execution.  I knew I had not met my goal of focusing on the process of racing well and letting results take care of themselves.  #1 focus for the next race will be pacing!!