Trial at Trail 51 -
I had to run this race today as I knew it would be a good one. 1951
feet of climbing on an awesome route, so much fun. My hip/priformis is
still a bit wonky but I'm happy with the effort considering. Good enough
for 5th place today. Warmed up 1.5 before the start on the first part of the course which is hilly but I took it very easy. Piriformis was a little sore but felt like it would be ok. I was happy to run into Melody at the start. There is always a great group of people at these smaller races.
Started off well on the initial mile+ climb to dry canyon and then
the fun begins. Ran/hiked the dry canyon section to curly (so lol
steep), actually dry heaved close to the top and laughed at myself, and
then had to hike a couple short sections of steep before the rollers. Most of this I was with or near Melody, Jonathan, and Dave Taylor. They all passed me about half way up dry canyon. My muscle was sore climbing today and I just couldn't get into a rhythm. It was nice to have that little group close. We were all encouraging and leap frogging each other. I hoped I could recover and that the soreness would go away on the rollers and was happy that it did. I slowed for a minute at the crest of dry and took a drink from my handheld and a GU and pushed ahead. I
recovered well on the rollers and then got into a really nice groove on
the Mario Kart single track section on the return. I could see Melody and Jonathan up ahead and was closing the distance. I think we were all much happier on that down stretch and we all wished each other well when I went by. I felt great on the return and tried to go into reckless abandon mode to the finish. I couldn't go quite as fast as I wanted but was still moving good. I could see
the fourth place guy up ahead and I closed like a freight train but I
ran out of course at the end and just missed him. Soooo much fun.
Short cool down after. It was fun to race again. I am happy with today even though I know I will come back and crush this when I'm 100%.
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