A tale of two races

Seven years ago I started my racing adventure when I ran the Crim 10 miler. It was not an overwhelming success.

Big races aren't really my thing. I mean, they're fun if you're there with people, and crowd support can get you through some tough times, but I'm much more of happy camper on the trails, and you just can't fit thousands of people comfortably doing that sort of race.

But I digress. I didn't discover my passion for trails until '06, and really I should be talking about this weekend, not history.

This Saturday was the 35th running of the Crim; my 6th. And though this was the first time I didn't score a course person best, I was very happy with the way it went.

I had a good time and didn't blow up.
My pace for the first three miles and the last three was almost exactly the same (7:40 vs 7:41)
I got to meet some daily mile friends.

This was Saturday. On Sunday, I ran the Merrell Down and Dirty Mud run. Sadly, there was really very little running through mud.

As I parked and started wandering around looking for packet pickup, I started chatting up a women who mentioned doing Tough Mudder. It turned out she had run the Crim the day before, and has almost exactly the same 10 Mile PR as I.

It also turned out that she ran the Woodstock half last year, and that she ran a good chunk of it with someone who I had trained for that race. Small world.

I started to pick up a few more more friends (One was the daily mile friend I met at the crim the day before; two were from my west bloomfield running group) we all sort of figured we were all at about the same speed. We hung together for a bit during the race, but once we got the a balance obstacle I was toast. My balance is kind of the suck.

Something to work on, I guess.

Anyway, the obstacles were fun for the most part, although the variety was a lot better at Warrior Dash. The hills were a lot more fun during this race, though. I think I know where to go for hill training.

On the other hand, after the race (where I believe I came in last of five of us) we agreed to think about doing the Michigan Tough Mudder next year. And I'm getting pretty excited about pursuing the possibility!

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