One Down, Two to Go

coming down from the peak (don't look too close at my flaws:)

I signed up for a race series this year.  It consists of three trail races, all within about a month.  Upon completion of these races I get a super nice Marmot jacket with the triple trails competition logo embroidered on it.  I can't wait to get the jacket.  Yes, there are easier ways to get a jacket.  But this is way more fun.

This is the first summer I've done this much trail running.  The more I do it, the more I love it.  Its definitely a different beast though.  Five miles on a trail is a lot different than five miles on the road.  Harder, but way prettier and less pounding.  The first race of the series was a steeple chase.  We had to run eight miles to the top of Jupiter Peak, and back down.  I was most nervous for this race because I've never done anything like it before.  While I enjoy trail running, running uphill like that has never been easy for me.  I've been training hard though, and I think it paid off.  The race was super hard, but fun too.  At one point we were seriously climbing single file along the edge of a peak.  Even the fastest people weren't running here.  It was all anyone could do to put one foot in front of the other.  Beautiful though.  The way down was fun.  I finished about when I thought I would, so I was happy.  I was even happier the next day when I looked at the results and saw that I finished 16th out of almost 200 girls.  Wahoo!  I'm not trying to brag, really.  But I trained hard for this race and it wasn't easy.  So there you go.  First race done, Park City half marathon next week.  Bring it on!