I may have overdone it. My daughter and I ran a 5K race this morning. (I'm still incredibly slow.) And once I got home, I realized that for the first time in months, I don't have a race to look forward to. I'm not sure what else can keep me motivated to get up at dawn and beat myself up if there's no race on the horizon. So, I got online and searched the local race calendar.
I found that there's going to be a 4 mile trail race nearby in a couple weeks. I love running on trails. For some reason, when I'm running on a narrow, winding trail, hopping over rocks and logs, it feels a lot more like play and less like a torturous work-out. I had to go check out this trail and see if it was one I could run. As it turns out, the race route consists of 4 completely uphill miles. And by "uphill," I don't mean a slight incline. I'm talking about knuckle-draggingly steep switchbacks. It's a bit more than a 1,000 ft. altitude gain. Crazy. There's no way I'm going to try to run up there! I started up the trail late in the day, so I only made it about half-way. The sun was setting, so I turned around...and ran down. I love running down steep trails. I don't know why they don't have a downhill trail race. Now that I could do.
My legs are feeling a bit sore, though, tonight. Two runs in one day. I may have overdone it.
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