Running the Edge of Hell

 The other weekend B and I ran the four mile, Edge of Hell, race.  I was feeling a little nervous for a couple reasons. The race was a trail run and neither of us had ever done a trail run. When we did cross country in the past, a couple races had a snippet of trail running, but never an entire race on a trail. In November we were running together and my knee started to bug me. I tried to ignore it, but over the next couple months the pain got pretty bad when I would run. I blew out both of my knees while running in high school. It hurt like the dickens. Welp, I was feeling that same pain again. I called and made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. When I went to see him he said the good news is that the inside of my knees were ok. The problem is that when I run, I hyper-extend my knees. Not gonna lie, I was a lot disappointed that I didn't need surgery. I think it would be so cool if B was able to put me to sleep for said surgery. Anyway, he said that six weeks of physical therapy should fix the problem and in the mean time, don't run. My appointment had been on a Tuesday and our four mile trail run was that Saturday. As you can imagine I was a little nervous to go run four miles on a trail with a gimpy knee. My love for running over shadowed the fear of pain, and to the race we went!

This is pre-race. Besides being cold, we were excited to give this trail run thing a go! We walked up the hill to the starting line and started to panic as we looked around and saw people doing intense stretches with their eyes closed, deep in concentration. We were hoping we would be running against people who didn't take a Saturday morning run so seriously. We were wrong, dead wrong. There were some pretty serious runners there. And then, there was us. We were just excited to run the race together without having the jogging stroller with little B in it. Our goal was to finish the four miles without dying.

This is post-race. Clearly we finished the race without dying. That's really good! There was some stiff competition! I don't know anyone's names so,  I took the liberty of handing out nick names. We'll start with a guy I named, Heavy Breather. B and I were running side by side, but then the trail got really narrow, so we had to go single file. I knew that B wasn't right behind me; Heavy breather was. I think he was the loudest breather I have ever heard. When I say he was right behind me, I mean that I was worried that he was going to step on my heels. I am thankful he was so loud as he inhaled and exhaled, because the sound was so annoying that it pushed me to run a little faster so that I could get away from the sound. Next we came to, Whoa, Buff Guy. His muscles were really big and he ran really funny. I knew that we could catch him and then pass him because of his non-aerodynamic shape. His muscles were so big that he couldn't put his arms all the way down. I knew that he would be experiencing a lot of drag. B had passed Heavy Breather and was next to me again. I told him that we should pass Whoa, Buff Guy. He agreed. We threw our imaginary lasso around him, and pulled ourselves towards him. We passed him at the bottom of a hill. Our next goal was Crazy Shorts. She looked like she had started the race out too fast and was getting pooped out. We set our eyes on the target on her back, caught her and passed her. Right after we passed her the trail went skinny again. B is crazy fast and he was like four or five runners ahead of me. I knew I could catch him if the trail would open up again. You might be asking why I didn't just go off the trail and pass the runners. The race was called, The Edge of Hell, because it's in a canyon and there were parts of the race that there were pretty steep drop offs right next to us. So the chance to run off the trail and pass the runners in front of me didn't present itself for awhile. The race was a four mile loop, so we knew we were getting close to the finish line when we saw the building were we had registered at, come into view. Thankfully the trail had opened up. I passed a few runners so the only person between me and B was Orange Socks. He looked like a strong runner, but my desire to finish with B was stronger. I lassoed him in and passed him. The finish line was at the bottom of a hill. I hate running down hill. It really hurts my knees. B was in front of me, we were at the top of the hill starting to run down it. We knew that we wanted to kick it in at the end. Ya know, finish strong. I was aware of my gimpy knee and that I needed to be nice to it. I slowed down a little on the hill and all the sudden Orange Socks came up from behind. He was running like he had rocket boosters on his shoes. He ran by me so fast that my hair blew forward. Ok, that's a mild exaggeration, but only a mild one. Orange Socks blew past me and then he passed B. He beat B by a second or two. Then B flew across the finish line and I came across one second behind him. The run had felt so good! We were so happy that we ran it. We got snacks and water. I love that races have snacks. Truth. Anyway, we were stretching and eating. They had given us tags when we started the race and they were hanging the tags up on a board so you could see your place. B went and looked at them and told me that he thought I was the second girl overall to finish. I told him I was sure that I wasn't and kept eating the fruit. We were stretching and overheard someone ask if there were prizes. The lady said yes and so B and I decided to stay for the prizes. We thought it would only take a little while for them to get all the tags and figure out people's places. Once again, we were wrong. It took them almost an hour. We debated about just going because we didn't even know if either of us would get anything. B said we should just go. I told him I just wanted one more orange and then we could make like a baby and head out. We were just about to walk away when the lady picked up the megaphone and said they were going to do door prizes. She said they would pick random registration forms and if your name was called you had your choice of gift cards. There were some from Subway,McDonald's or Itunes. I crossed my fingers and closed my eyes hoping that my name would be called. I already knew that if I won, I would pick the Subway gift card. I love that place! The last time I won something was in Jr. high when I won an Ace Of Base 8 track tape. Yes, an 8 track tape that I was so excited to listen to on my yellow Walkman. I felt like it was high time I won something else. The megaphone lady reached into the bag, she grabbed a registration form and pulled it out. She looked at the name and called it out. It was my name!!! I had a Price is Right moment as I started jumping up and down and screaming with excitement! I made a complete idiot of myself, but I was so excited I couldn't help it! They called a few more door prizes and moved right into the race prizes. I found out that I finished second overall for women and first in my age group. That was pretty exciting, but not near as exciting as my Subway gift card.

 B insisted on taking a picture. I felt really stupid standing there alone, but B said that I had to. Running a four mile trail  race was really fun, running it with B made it even better and being able to go out to lunch for free after because of a Subway gift card knocked it out of the park! We had a great time and are excited to run another race together next month.