Archive for November 2006
Going Off-Road
I did my first trail race (and first trail run) yesterday. It was a bigger adjustment than I expected. The course itself wasn’t particularly challenging – it was a flat 10k over fire roads and single track – but the combination of roots, rocks, leaves, and low light forced me to concentrate a lot harder than I typically do while running.
At first I liked this heightened sense of awareness, but got spooked when I came across a woman who had badly twisted her ankle on a short descent. Later, I stumbled and came close to twisting my ankle and ended up running pretty tentatively during the second half of the race. I also found it hard to resist the urge to put my head up and look around.
Overall, it was a really cool change of pace…I am psyched to do more trail running in the future.
