This past Saturday was the Hamster Endurance Run for us.  Wow.  Hard.  I wasn’t properly prepared as I am not used to running on a trail, or dirt, or rocks, or hills that one encounters while hiking.  What can I say other than I only completed 13.3 miles (21 km).  This is what my 13 miles of trail looked like:

I usually run on the road, so I wore the shoes I’m most comfortable in… my road shoes.  Lesson learned… I won’t do that again, not for a trail run.  They don’t provide the cushion or stability one needs to run across rocks.  This is what James’s looked like at the end of the run; you can’t even tell that his shoes used to be black:

Okay, with that being said, I loved this event.  The people, the food, the atmosphere.  It was the most relaxed I’ve ever felt, especially knowing I had a long, hot day ahead of me. We took our chairs and set up a place to hang out and relax when we wanted a break.  The whole covered part was our “aid station.”  There were only about 60 runners participating.

Out on the trail, I met 2 older men, one who was 80 and one who was 69.  They both had accomplished running an ultra in all 50 states 4 times each!  The 80-year-old was signed up for the 32-hour event (!!) and was aiming for 100K.  He didn’t start running until he was 64.  See… there’s hope for me yet!!

It was a great course, but like I said, it was hard.  The lake was beautiful that day and there was lots of activity going on.  At one point, I wanted to just go put my feet in the water as it felt like they were on fire.

This is us with about an hour left to go (James lapped me a few times):

And finally, the finisher’s award:

We did have a really good time, but it left us wiped for the rest of the weekend. Even simple tasks were daunting, and we were sore in places we don’t usually get sore.  I won’t give away how far James went… that’s for him to share, so stay tuned to 50 in 50 Marathon Quest to find out.  He may give a full recap sometime in the near future, :).

My first trail run is now in the bag, and I would absolutely do more trail running if I could find a hiking trail on which to train!  In the meantime, I’ll have to stick to the road races. Next up for me is the Bellingham Bay 10K at the end of September… a tune-up race for my final half-marathon of the year in Tulsa!

Squirrel count for August so far:  13