I ran the Pittsburgh Wild Half Trail Race on Saturday. I was debating doing a 5k Saturday and 10k Sunday since I haven’t done anything “fast” in awhile, but the trail race was calling my name (my husband was really excited about trail racing as well) so we chose the 13.1 on the trails. I ended up first female (3rd overall) and setting the female course record by 14 minutes. My husband won overall and set the course record as well.

Jeff and me post race.

I planned to do a few easy warmup miles, run at least part of it at a “tempo effort” (not knowing what the course would be like), then do a few miles cooldown. We ended up getting to the race later than anticipated so I probably only got about a mile warmup, then ran the race, and finished with just a bit over a mile cooldown because we were SO SORE! The course consisted of single track trails that were very hilly, muddy (think shoes being stuck in mud in many places, 2 creeks to run through, 2 grassy fields that were easily under an inch of water, lots of roots/trees to jump over, trees to duck under, you know, any obstacle you could imagine in the woods. It was totally awesome and a huge physical challenge.

Thanks JL Photography and Design for the photo!

While I was never running fast (ended up 30 mins slower than my last half marathon!) the course was very intense physically and mentally. The physical was explained above. The mental challenge came from the need to pay attention to every step I took to keep myself from falling. My husband always lovingly jokes “watch out, there’s a flat part coming up” because I tend to trip on nothing at all when running. Add some obstacles and I’m asking for trouble. Also, I tend to completely zone out during parts of my run. Sometimes on training runs I don’t remember parts of my course until I look at the data from my Garmin! There were very few steps of this race where I wasn’t intensely concentrating on where my next foot would land. No zoning out this time!

While this race was definitely the most challenging course I’ve run, it was great fun and a nice way to change things up a bit. I wish I would have worn trail shoes instead of my regular training shoes (Asics Gel Cumulus) so I wouldn’t have done so much sliding around. I got some nice prizes as shown below.

Shirt, plaque, visor, feetures socks, water bottle, 2 gift certificates, a box of power gel, and a power bar

Feeling stronger every day and ramping my miles back up this week. I’m even thinking of adding another goal race to my calendar soon!

My next post will be on nutrition lately (since having my second child and running at a high level) and my pre-race nutrition that has been keeping my stomach happy! Thanks for following along!