So I signed up for a 15k about a month and a half ago (when I was still working out a lot and running 2-3 times a week). Since then I got pretty lazy and stopped running on a regular basis. I thought that the 15k yesterday would be hard, but I was aiming to do it in about an hour and 40 minutes. Yeah. That didn't happen. Long story short: The run was full trail running, which I didn't think would be too terrible, but we started off with nature stairs (dirt and wood blocks), had a bunch of one lane hills, a bunch of down trees that we had to hurdle, some mud, cliffs and finally a hill so steep that they had a rope with handles that you had to use just to get to the bottom. Needless to say I did not meet my goal of an hour and 40 minutes. More like an hour 58 minutes. It would have been hard even if I was training properly. The fact that I hadn't been just made it that much worse. I was just sorry that I didn't have a camera to take pictures of all the crazy obstacles along the course. A tree root tried to take me out at mile 2, but I recovered with only minor scrapes, bruises, and dirt and kept going. It was so crazy that all I could do when I finished was laugh. Quinn had heard about all the crazy things from people who finished before me so he had a huge smirk on his face when I finished. He knew I would tell him how ridiculous the run was. He told me that if we're still here this time next year we can try it again...I think I'll let him do it and I'll watch.
What makes this story even more crazy is that the race was a 15k, 30k and 50k. The people doing the 30 and 50 had to go through the course 2 and 3 times. By mile 7 I was ready to see the finish line. By mile 9.6 I was ready to cry. A rope course and half a mile later I finally made my way out of the woods to the sidewalk with the finish line. I could not imagine doing it 2 or 3 times. They are troopers. Laying on the couch in sweatpants I can say that it was pretty fun. At the time I would have told you to take a hike. We'll see about next year.
Lesson learned: Look at the course before you sign up for the run.
