Xterra Trail Run Series - Riverhead Forest

This morning I took part in the first Xterra Trail Run. Stan signed up as well, so we did the Super Long course together. 21kms of pure muddy, rocky, rugged terrain. <3 haha...

Over the past few days I have been working my legs out heaps. I went for a run up Mount Wellington on Friday morning, then took a spin class about an hour just after. Yesterday morning I took Bootcamp for Configure, for which I didn't run much, but I did lead the warm up up Mount Wellington again. And then I took another spin class at 10.30 am that same morning. And to add to that, I've been swamped with reports to complete, which meant I had very little sleep over the past few nights too.

Which is probably no wonder that my quad muscles started to cramp up about 8kms into the race. And then in a moment of pure clumsiness (Karen style), I slipped on a muddy patch, jammed my foot to stop myself, and pulled my quad. Ouch, is an understatement. I tried to massage it, and slowly stretch it out, which helped to ease the pain. Slowly I started to pick up the pace again.

Stan and I ran the rest of the way together. He's amazing motivation to keep going. It's pretty awesome, because the last time I truly enjoyed running alongside someone else was with Keeran for the first Genting Trailblazer. But we were in a team event then, so we kinda had to keep close together. And I wasn't going out with him. So that's a different story. =) Oh running with Lydia was cool too, but again, team event, must run together.

We finished the race in 3 hours and 9 minutes, roughly. I was quite happy =) I aimed for 3 hours, but with trail runs, you can never tell how long you're gonna take because the terrain is so unpredictable. Plus, pulling a muscle is no fun. But having somebody to run with, is a lot of good fun. And especially with the kind of terrain we went through today, I know that even the keenest running friends I've got would not have enjoyed it. The fact that Stan thoroughly enjoyed it just leaves me in disbelief, I can't believe I never met him sooner. =)