Was feeling pretty tired and not ready to race hard much, so I mostly just had a freakishly fun time at a crazy race in Oregon! Got there and checked in and warmed up a titch (since it was cold and raining), then we got on the line and instead of a gun to start us off, we started to a bagpipe serenade! The course was a trail 5k and a road 5k that we could run in whichever order we wanted. I did the trail portion first. It was so muddy and slick and wet and beautiful in the woods and overall AWESOME! I was totally soaked and had mud splattered all the way up me by the time I'd finished the first half. Then the road portion entirely kicked my butt. The first mile and a bit was a huge uphill, then a short steep downhill, then we turned around and went up the short steep hill and down the long hill. Ouch. If I hadn't been tired already... still deaded! Then we had another long downhill, some flat bits and then back up the other long hill to the finish. Talk about a killer course! The lady who beat me was amazing - she ran a 36-something and was just blazing the whole way - she almost beat all the guys! And the pipe and drum band was still playing when I finished. Didn't get my official time, awards, or anything because I had to leave right away to catch my flight in Portland at 1:35pm. And we had to push our rental car out of the mud we'd parked in and got splattered with even more muck! What a fun race! I'm so glad I did it, the bagpipers were awesome and made me smile and it was fun to race in such crazy conditions, even though my time off my watch (42:48 - I stopped it a ways late, though) was really slow. Mostly just a PARTY!!! Just got official results - updated! So slow!!!! :) (DS2 454.8)
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