This past Saturday was the Hell's Hills 10k trail run and first time I've run in months. It was also one of the very few times I've gotten the chance to run with my husband. It was great on both accounts! I actually wasn't supposed to be running with my husband for that race, I was supposed to be running with coworker and friend who unfortunately got super sick and couldn't go. My husband surprised me by volunteering to take his place. (Note, this is why I also have a lack of pictures of the race. Usually my photographer is on the sidelines capturing my badassery, this time he was running by my side!)
My husband is not a runner so he has always been my biggest supporter and "pack pony" as he likes to call himself at my races. I just recently talked him into starting the Couch to 5k running program and as of Saturday he'd completed two of the three days in the first week of the program. You know, where you run 60 seconds and walk for 90 seconds for a total of 20 min? Yeah. He went from that to running at 10k. And he did a damn good job!
The race was out at Rocky Hill Ranch in Smithville and I was pretty nervous. Like I'd said, it was the first time I'd run in about 2 months. I've also done two other races, Spartan Race and Hell Run, at this ranch and each time, the hills made me want to cry for my mama. I was just hoping for a little bit of redemption this go around.
There were 4 distances at the race, 50mi, 50k, 25k and our 10k. The poor bastards doing the 50mi had to start at 5am! Our 10k group started at 7:15am so the goal was to be there at 6am to give us plenty of time to park, get our packets, stretch and get in place. If there's one thing that seems to be a constant is our complete lack of ability to arrive anywhere on time. So rather than getting there at 6, we got there around 6:40am, which had me freaking out because I forgot the race started at 7:15, not 7:00.
We ran like chickens with our heads cut off up to the packet pick up, back to the car, got our bibs pinned and our timing chips situated, then off to the porta-potties we went. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. Now, you would think that this place would provide more than 7 porta-potties for over 560 runners, right? You would think wrong my friend. Not only that, but they were ALL out of toilet paper. Thank goodness I have had plenty of experience of squatting in bushes to pee without TP so I just dealt with it but for those who needed to *ahem* handle a difference business they were kinda shit outta luck, no pun intended.
7:13am, we're finally all set and ready at the start line. Well, really at the very back of the group, not close to the starting line at all but you get the point. We start and I work on having us maintain a slow and steady pace. As always, the first 1/2 mile or so feels terrible. We hit the same point as the last two races where I just wanted to quit running and start walking with everything in me. But I told myself that I didn't stop either time before so I wasn't going to do that this time either. Fortunately that feeling passed pretty quickly, faster than usual actually.
From there on it was amazing. I absolutely love trail running and this was an absolutely perfect trail for my first run in months. We lucked out and they bypassed those 4 or 5 dreaded super steep hills so the entire trail was almost like a roller coaster, fast and fun. Bexar would let me know when he needed to stop and walk and a mile or so into the race he learned the benefits of throwing back a packet of salt when your calves are threatening to cramp up on you. We tended to leapfrog with a group of about 6 or 7 different people, and one woman in particular who we had fun shouting "TAG!" with as we ran past and vise versa. Every now and then we'd hit a particularly awesome looking section and I'd look at Bexar, give him a thumbs up, switch to my super epic running song (False King by Two Steps From Hell, EPIC.) and take off. I'd run until either the section straightened out or I decided I was far enough out that I needed to stop and wait for him to catch up.
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| A section of one of the trails at Rocky Hill Ranch. This? Is fun times for Katy :D |
Bexar was a trooper out there. I watched him push through leg cramps, foot pain from the rocks, and just the general pain of running 6 miles when you've never really run before. I think watching him push through all that motivated me to keep pushing through the pain when my right hip and piriformis started hurting about 4 miles in.
When it was all said and done, we finished with times of 1:40:09 and 1:40:15. All in all, I'm pretty happy with that time! I'm even more happy however that I got to run and spend time with husband in such a beautiful location doing something so fun. I can definitely say the running bug has finally bitten me again and I'm looking forward to Bexar continuing the C25k program and for us to start running together. In the mean time, we've got these bad ass medals to hang on our wall:
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