I mean, it was really muddy, and we even crossed a stream . . . without a bridge. It's been noticeably dry this spring in the Pacific Northwest. But Taylor Mountain didn't disappoint. It rained during the week before the race and the trail was sloppy. The mud was deep enough and thick enough in spots on the trail that it felt like it could suck your shoe off.
This race was 1,900 of elevation gain. The race started immediately onto single track. Often, trail races start in an open area or on a dirt road to give runners an opportunity to seed themselves and spread out before hitting the single track. Not this race! I started out toward the back of the pack. I got a kick out of seeing tender-footed runners try to dart around mud puddles and tip-toe through the mud. I hope they didn't think I was rude but I just yelled "PASSING" and splashed past them. We reached the stream crossing just before 1 mile. I stopped and took a few pictures.
Then, it was an uphill climb through the trees. And then it was downhill. And then an aid station, and uphill, and downhill, and uphill and downhill, and aid station. You get the idea. It was a great place to run. I enjoyed the company of several different runners along the way.
GPS WATCHES: I have a Garmin forerunner 310XT. It is the only GPS watch I have ever used. It gives me splits by the mile so I can see how my pace is doing. I love how it downloads to a website and graphs my pace and elevation. The watch came with a heart rate monitor and when I where the chest band, it also graphs my heart rate!
It is just a fun toy for me. I like to see how far I've gone when I am on the trails. That way, I know how much farther I have to go before I am finished! I've noticed that when I am running a half marathon, I count up the miles at first: mile 1, mile 2, mile 3, etc. Then, somewhere around mile 8 I start counting down: only 5 more miles to go, only 4 more miles to go, etc. I even go as far as saying to myself, "only 20 more laps around a track" or "only 16 more laps around a track." When I get down to "only 12 more laps around a track" I'll even remind myself that I could crawl that far if I ever needed to! It's the funny things we say to ourselves when we have nothing else to do with our brains while we are running that keep us going.
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