Yep. It has finally set in. The fact that I am now 40. The realization came with finishing 1st Male Master yesterday at the Charlotte Running Company Trail Race at the US National Whitewater Center, but I am getting ahead of myself..
Very cool award, a ceramic tile
The weather was cold and wet. We had almost an inch of rain the days leading up to the race, so the trails were good and muddy. With 3 distances, a 3.8, an 8.2 and a 13 miler all running that day, it was a good turnout with over 350 runners.
The race started with the 13 miler’s and 8.2 miler’s ten minutes ahead of the 3.8’s. Dan Kimball, Ben Endicott and myself stood at the start line and hatched a similar game plan for running the 13 mile race. Since we had similar strategies, we decided to stick together. Granted, there was the standard, "If I fall back go on without me" agreement. Actually, it was more like, "If you fall, I’m going to use you as a surfboard to get down the muddy hill."
It was an awesome race. Even though the three of us didn’t stick into a tightly packed group, we did stay within sight of each other through the muddy switchbacks. At the end of the race, Matt Colby gave me a run for my money with an awesome sprint finish. Nothing like sprinting across a gravel parking lot after running 12.5 muddy miles.
Dan, Me, & Matt
Although I usually give you a play-by-play of the race in my race reports, this time I’m going to leave it a professional writer: Theoden Janes. He does a much better job explaining the day and he does so with proper English (unlike me).
Read his write-up: http://obsruntheoden.blogspot.com/2010/01/and-now-ill-share-few-dirty-thoughts.html
You can also see the results.
Be a Warrior.
Marcus
Speedy Lizard 