The Maze

After I ran the Capitol 10K in April, it took me a couple of weeks before my left knee and right foot stopped bothering me and I could hit the streets again. Jennifer mentioned that she'd heard about The Maze, a 10K trail run in our Walnut Creek Park organized by Austin's Rogue Training.

Unfortunately she had a conflict and would be in Kansas that weekend, but I decided to sign up. A couple of weeks before the run I switched from running my Metric Loop to running in the park. Jfer appreciated that, since I would take the dogs with me (Walnut Creek Park is leash-free) and she wouldn't be woken up by Rose making a ruckus when I go running without her. Of course, the last two weeks have been extremely wet, so running in the park is a muddy affair, but still - it's nice than watching the traffic.

The race itself turned out pretty good. Being a realist, started at the end of the pack, which isn't a good idea because for the first mile or so, you're forced to occasionally walk whenever there is traffic jam before a creek crossing or a steep descend. But once people spread out, the running went OK. It was a little strange being in "our" park without dogs or a stroller. The park had mostly dried out, but after every creek crossing (I think there were 8) you'd have to slug it through some mud. I ran most of it, but did my share of walking, too. I'd usually try to stick with someone and let them pace me, but since I had started towards the end, I actually ended up passing quite a few people -- and was constantly being passed by the 30K runners on their second loop.

In the end, I finished with a time of 1:21:11 with which I'm quite happy. That's 166th out of two hundred (co-ed). I was glad when my run was over and grateful I only had to do one loop rather than three, like the 30K runners. Meredith O cheered for me towards the end and will hopefully share some pictures.

So I currently am not training towards anything in particular. The Rogues have another 10K trail run in June, so maybe Jfer could do that one with me if we find a sitter (she likes the T-Shirt I got from the run). But I'd really like to do a 5K -- it would be nice to do a race in which I could conceivably run from start to finish,