Bobcat Trail Marathon

The weekend started out with a trip to Tiffin,OH to watch Corey play at Heidelberg College on Saturday. It wasn't a very good day for the Marietta Pioneers on the gridiron. Marietta lost 42-14. It was a far cry from last week when they beat Otterbein. Corey however, had a good game with 8 tackles and a fumble recovery. One more game left for his football career and then I'm going to try to turn him into a runner:D

Sunday was the Bobcat Trail Marathon in Glouster, OH at the Burr Oak park. It was a beautiful day for a run on the trails! I have never ran a marathon race on the trails, so I had no idea how to run it. I started out with a 50k pace which was nice and relaxed since I was not too sure how recovered I was from the 50 miler two weeks ago. I got in a real nice group of about five runners and met a woman named Cassandra McCune. Her and I stuck with four men for about the first 10 miles. The leaves were thick and the terrain was pretty rough and I only went down once in the first 10 miles. Thank goodness the leaves were down to cushion my falls! After we left the first aid station, there were about five or so runners ahead of us and we soon discovered that we had all made a wrong turn and were off course. We ended up running a half mile off course by the time we were on track again. At that point, I was running 4th for the women but was able to catch up with the 3rd place woman because she was in the group ahead of us that also got lost. Her and I picked up the pace and passed the woman that was in second. Everything was going just fine, even after a couple more spills in the leaves and I was able to pass the second place woman at about mile 18. I even got tangled up in prickers and had blood running down my arm and leg. I probably was quite a sight at the end of the race!! For a course that was suppose to be flat and fast there were a lot of hills and it seemed that they were all in the last six miles. By mile 21, I was starting to suffer a bit but I knew I had to keep pushing. I was told that the leading woman was about 15 min ahead of me. I knew I probably wouldn't catch her but you know me I had to try! At mile 22, I caught up with Kevin Martin, who was also struggling a bit, so we stayed together and kept each other going. With 2 miles left, I was really hurting and the hills just kept coming. Everytime I came to a hill in those last couple miles, the curse words would come pretty easily. Thanks, Vince! (the race Director) I was able to make up some ground on the leader and I managed to pass a couple more male runners, but it was TOUGH! I finished 2nd female and 11th overall with a time of 4:41.23. So much for a fast, flat course!

I think at this point, I'm more physically tired then anything. I'm not sore, just tired! This old body can only take so much! Overall, it was a great race and a perfect day to be out on the trails. I'm glad I did it but glad it's over! Good job to all those who ran the race! A prayer goes out to Ron Ross who turned his ankle at miles 10 and had to stop. Hope it is ok!

The next couple of days, I will take it easy. I swam 1 and1/4 miles today and will probably do the same tomorrow. I will try to start running on Wednesday.