S.H.ivering I.cy T.rail R.un: The sh*ttiest trail half marathon non-race I’ve ever done

Photo courtesy of HatePavement

I got an email from my Best Training Buddy, Emily, on Wednesday following a subliminal brain sync where we both were thinking “Hey, we should MAF soon” and “let’s go do fun things outside this weekend.” So, she invited me to a non-race put on by Rock Racing, which promised ice, cold, shitty conditions. Saturday morning was beautiful, but as I looked at the forecast for the evening, I got the feeling that the non-race gods were truly with us…

So Saturday afternoon, Emily and I, and my husband, drove to the Mound at Lost Valley. En route, we stopped by Chucks Boots in St Peters to check out their selection, and I definitely wasn’t able to decide on a pair… too many options. So we meandered over to LV around 4pm and were some of the first to arrive. Adam rolled out on his single speed to do the LV loop counter-clockwise, and get out before it got too dark on trails he wasn’t familiar with, and E and I loitered for a while before the group gathered and we took off.

A group of SHITRs, photo courtesy of Robin

The single track was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of pain. At first, the adrenaline was flowing through my veins, both from getting on single track for the first time in a while, and also because of the dark (there’s just something so magical about running at night). I think it helped that it wasn’t raining too hard, and that there were lots of people around (and it was twilight) so I could still kinda see where I was going but also had fresh legs. Maybe the moonshine from the night before was helping, too. Anyway, the first section was nice and fast, not icy or too slick, and when we got to the two-track I was mid-way between Emily and the rear end of the chase pack. So I caught up to the guys in front, and chatted with them while Emily caught back up to me. It was good convo, and I got to catch my lungs and recover my legs a bit on even (sort of) terrain. As soon as we hit the second section of single track, everything changed. The newest portion of the single track at LV is only a few months old, and the guys we were running with didn’t even know it existed. It wasn’t quite erosion-resistant yet, and it wasn’t packed in like a 20yr-old trail would be, so I (and everyone else except Emily, seemingly) was sliding everywhere. She took off, after we found the mystery event (which, to my knowledge, neither of us reported. Do we get extra bonus points for that?).

This is me, getting scared shitless as I cross a creek on the singletrack. Photo courtesy of HatePavement

Around mile 9, or whatever (I really have no idea), there was a bit of switchbacking in the woods, and it was confusing whose lights belonged to people in front of me and behind me, and I had no idea how far away people were. And apparently I had no idea how far away the ground was, because I found myself running into the bushes and into holes and just being a general sloppy mess. I ran off the trail more than on it, and started to get really messy, both physically and mentally. Eventually, I decided my pants were too heavy from soaking up all the rain, and when I tried to pull them up my calves, they smeared like butter under my fingers and ripped across my shin. That was weird.

While I never got passed, Emily eventually got out of sight in front of me, and no one was in sight behind me. I was sure I was on the right path, but I also felt like I wasn’t moving and was just waiting for someone to come into view behind me. Nope. Was I lost? Hmm… why aren’t people catching up to me? We couldn’t possibly be that far apart… But we were, apparently, and I found myself on the two-track without anyone. Except the wind. Ohh, the wind. It was just me, and the wind, for what seemed like two miles, until I started seeing glowing sky which i was sure had to be close to the Mound.

It was a hard fought battle, but I finally made my way back to the Mound, grabbed a sticker and some KIND bars (from the awesomely amazing volunteers and coordinators who are seriously badass. They just waited in the sleet, 30mph winds and 30F for us all to finish. Seriously. Nutters.). I felt good, only because I didn’t make them wait too long for me, but that was really the only reason why I didn’t crawl into a hole sucking my thumb and asking for my mommy. I took my pants off in the parking lot (and all my wet clothes, mind you), and didn’t stop shaking until the Mexican food and coffee from La Azteca filled my belly. Oh right, I put clothes on before I went into the restaurant.

I will totally do that again. Of course, I will run on LV again … in the summer when its not raining and its not pitch black at 6pm… but next SHITR, wherever it might be, I am there to get my ass handed to me and feel a.o.k. about it.

Thanks to Rock Racing and the seriously awesome folks that thought it would be a good idea to do this. You’re all idiots, and I love you.