Write about a race you ran in.

While it was not the last one I did, the one I’m going to talk about is the last race that I felt was a real accomplishment, even though my time wasn’t great.

In October 2022, Ash and I ran the Tall Timbers Pine Run 20k. He has done it in the past, probably four or five other times. That year, I was training for it and while working from home, was able to get in those longer weekly runs. Heck, I was doing my 10 milers on Wednesday mornings! I sadly don’t seem to have time for that kind of training anymore.

This is a trail run and not my favorite kind of race. I typically do 10ks on pavement. While I should have probably done more trails during my training, it turned out ok. Ash and I got out there early as it basically begins “at dawn”.

I didn’t take a single photo while out there but here’s one I stole from our running club. There were 124 people running it the year we did it and that’s about the average because this is not for the faint of heart. It’s roughly 12.42 miles on a variety of trails such as grass, pebbles, larger stones. It’s got quite the elevation gain – 500 feet!

I was feeling pretty good about the race in general. People I knew were out there too: Scott and Katasha, Mary Jane. They are long distance runners who work with Ash. Then Steve, who is about 10 years older than us and been training for marathons these last few years. Nick was there too, a newer friend from Jersey and is a runner. He has the added advantage of being, like, 6’5”. Anyway, when it began, I was feeling great. The first six miles were a breeze and then it has this one leg where it’s a turnaround so I saw people on their way back as I was going out, so their encouragement helped. It wasn’t until about 9.5 miles I started to feel tired. Sadly, the last two miles has a serious climb. I mean, steep inclines that most everyone has to either slow down on or literally walk. It’s more like a hike.

I finished 100/124 runners at about 2 hours 20 minutes. I wasn’t super disappointed, given that I didn’t know what to expect. But I was sure glad I did it! Certainly glad when it was over too. I was all ready to turn around and do the Boston Mini Marathon half at the end of October but Ash’s knees didn’t hold up so we chose not to. I feel like I maybe should have just done it anyway, since I was trained up already. It would have been slightly longer but it’s pavement, a nice rolling hills out and back. I was really proud of this one though since that’s a good distance. I miss long distance runs and hope some day to be able to train again!