Lord Hill

Lord Hill. Yup, it's got hills. Boy, my legs can feel it today. Upstairs is not so bad, down, I make a few noises.

Let's just say on the way home it was slushy rain and I started hoping for a two hour late start for school today.

My prayers were answered this morning at 5:14 when the phone rang announcing a two hour delay. I changed the alarm and slept in till 7am. My body was thankful. Sorry Rob. I survived the rest of the day. I am very tired. My body is okay, I feel like I could go for a short jog. I am just super tired. I will go to bed early tonght. As soon as I am done typing.

For my report: I met Steve, Eric, Jamal at Eric's house at 5:15am and we were off to pick up Rob in SUmner on our way to a fabulous run. We also picked up karen in Bellevue for a packed car! It was already a fun day, just on the car ride up!

I was excited to try running with my husband's Ipod. I knew I'd be alone for the majority of the race and I wanted to not have the negative self-talk I had on Capitol Peak. The batteries died at 12 miles into the race just into the second loop. I sang to myself and kept things positive!

I divided the course into mini-sections. First was the rocky out and back hill, next was the rocky mud puddle road section, third was the big hill/barn/elevator shaft/big hill section, then the foresty section with some mud to the end. I checked them off my mental list each time I went through.

The first loop I mostly ran except on the big hills. The second loop I tried to listen to my garmin beeps and take regular walk breaks on the runable sections to keep my energy up. On the third loop I tried to run as much as I could. I mostly hiked up the bigger hills but ran as I could. I had to walk down most of the hills in the rocky mud puddle road section as I didn't want to break an ankle going down hill on the giant rocks. I enjoyed passing by people throughout the race on the out and back sections. On the last loop I pretty much only saw Karen and Arther who was doing his last lap backwards.

I had two sorta scary encounters with people in the park when I was down towards the barn. First was a man walking his german shepherd. The man was nice, but his dog wanted to play with me! He pan along and beside and around me all the way up the hill towards the elevator shaft hill. The second was a scary man walking up the hill as I was going down towards the barn on the last loop. I jan along waiting for him to jump out from behind a tree and assault me in my time of no muscle control. He didn't and I was happy. I tackled that elevator shaft in 4 minutes on the last loop! I side stepped each time I went up to use different muscle groups. I had a vision here of the scary guy at the top waiting to knock me over backwards and watch me roll all the way down. Didn't happen. One more big hill left and I could coast my way in to the finish! I made it and was determined to run the last two miles. I pretty much did and was estatic to see Steve coming to greet me about a half mile from the finish. He ran in with me and we made it till just before the end is a steepish hill. We walked up the last bit of it and the I ran the very last incline to the finish line! Whew! My glutes and left hip were bothersome, and the regular achy knees, but other than that I felt fine. The achyness is gone today and I can tell I worked hard yesterday and am exhausted still but I don't hurt anywhere.

It was a really great day. I am happy with my time and know that I can run a tough 50k. I still look forward to running a 50 miler sometime in the future!
So, Lord Hill was a blessing on a cold Sunday morning. The weather was good, the people were great, the course was challenging and I met it head on. I was blessed again with a chance to get some extra rest this morning. I couldn't ask for more.

Grace and peace to you.