Squirrelly Tail Trail 1/2marathon-RR and ramblings

What a cold morning for a run! 6* at the start. Oh, and a slightly sore achilles. So I decide to still run the race but to run it slow and smart. I will warn you that I did not take one picture because I was to worried about my running on the snowy/icy trails to think much about it! And Rik didnt take any because he was actually running this race at a fast pace instead of just his normal bebopping along ;) So the pics are from Scott Newcomer, RD.  Here is the picture of the swag though...

This is a local race at Pinchot which is a park around a large lake. Its about 9miles around the main trail that goes around closest to the lake. So add a couple of extra trails and you have 13miles!

This weekend we had a couple inches of snow (1-3) and it was actually below freezing overnight. So a trail that is usually VERY nasty and muddy except in a drought was instead frozen with only small areas of mud. Perfect! Here is what the trail looks like most times of the year...


The race started at 10am and it was freezing with wind gusts over 25mph. It seemed like alot of people didnt show up but that was fine with me. Off we went up the road and onto the trail.
Another picture of the usually muddy but frozen today trail. This is of the flater area that run close to the lake.


I was running this at a slow and steady pace today because I have been having trouble with a sore achilles for the past two days. So I just wanted to get the miles in. It was a nice race everything was great, especially for a first year event. Except I will complain about the first aid station being at over the 6mile point which I thought was a little long for a half but not to bad. Here is a pic of a creek crossing that leads into the lake...


Everything went well until a little over the 8mile point where my achilles started to remind me that it was sore. This only lasted for about a mile and the subsided.


Then for the last 2-3miles are the only really hills of the course and these are small hills in comparison to most hills we run around here except, what makes them difficult is that it is where the water drains so alot of ice and loose rocks. I did pick it up for the last mile just because I wanted to get done and passed atleast 4 people...yay me!
I ended up finishing in 2:38. And thought that was a good days run...until I looked at my Garmin afterwards. I saw that my last 3miles were 2-3mins per mile slower then the previous ones! Not good because I think that my achilles was really bothering me but I didnt feel it because I was so frozen! After the race I felt fine, no pain. Until we drove the almost hour home...i got a shower...and warmed up did the stiffness and moderate pain of the ankle and achilles become apparent.
Needless to say, I iced and rolled. Tomorrow I will make an appointment to get it checked out. I dont want to wait and self treat like I did last year with my groin. I have a busy spring running schedule ahead!

BTW, Rik finished in 1:50 which was good enough for 9th place. He is really running well and I am so proud of him. Now if I could just figure out how to get some of that speed!!!

Thanks for reading...Happy Trails!