Hello Pain, It's Been a Long Time

Today was the first "official" race of the year for me the Brian Harms memorial 10 mile and I have to say that it was a tough way to start off the race season. I didn't have the easiest week leading up to the race, I had an 8km x-country race on Wednesday which I pushed pretty hard, a tough swim on Friday, a really hard 50km bike ride on Thursday and another 40kms in freezing weather on Saturday. So I went into the race a little tired but I was excited to start racing in GP again and hoping I could have a good day.

It was a little strange to start racing at 11am but I had an opportunity to walk Harley in the morning and stay calm. I picked up Sarah (sister-in-law) who was running her first 5k and did fantastic and we made our way to the start. Amber was out running for 5 hours and 50kms today and she was going to meet us at the start to run with some of her girls. I met up with a few friends at the start and waited for the horn to go off so I could get the suffering over with.

It finally started and a couple guys went off like a bullet I wanted to stick to my pace but I also wanted to compete so I just said forget it and went out hard. I was running stride for stride with a young track kid who held the pace for the first 3kms and then started to fade. The run through the trails is beautiful but it's was hard to enjoy it when my body was absolutely red lining and everything was screaming for me to stop and walk. I hit the gravel road at 4kms and felt like I was running backwards but did my best to hold it together and when I had to turn around and do another lap I wished I had signed up for the 8k instead of 16k. The second lap was very hard and I definitely slowed down but I managed to pull out a sub-hour race and I was very happy to see that finishing stretch. Yes it was painful but definitely worth it, this was a great start to the race season and I'm hoping my fitness improves. The Blackfoot Ultra is next, that's Amber's big 80k and I'll be there cheering her on while doing the 'baby ultra' 25kms.

The Last Mile- I was HURTING

Team Speed Revolution- Robert won the 8k and I won the 16k