Hey, guess what! Trail runs are really effing hard! Guess who was surprised about this? ME! Guess who was not nearly trained enough for a 15 miles trail run? ME! Guess who is also incredibly clumsy? Yep, ME! But who else had ton of fun and would do it again as soon, as my legs stopped hating me? That would be me. I love the idea of trail running. It’s why I run. Adventure, views, and challenging. But the first one was tough, just a little reminder that I am not good at things my first time out. Lesson learned!
Before I go into my diatribe about new lessons, I have to really give a HUGE love to Rain Shadow Running. What an amazing group. Everyone was super great. The event was very well organized, with high fives at the end, great food, shelter to stay warm and a folk band. So great! And the one I did yesterday was the easiest of the series. So if you are going to run one, you may, I don’t know, train for it. Just saying.
1. Train on trails! Running 21 miles is nothing like running 15 miles on something that looks like this. 
2. Walking is so my friend. From the above map, if I tried to run up those hills, I may have snapped my legs in half.
3. Trail runners are great and really, really good looking. Just saying, lots of eye candy out there in little tiny shorts.
4. Trails are not created the same. The fluid and flat trail in Discovery Park is not what I ran on. Apparently there more “technical” trails, where I climbed, slipped and really had to watch where I was going.
5. Stop to take in the view. We ran over Deception Pass bridge, and it was amazing. There were sweeping views of all the islands and and epic water views. If I didn’t stop to breathe and take it in, I would have missed out on the whole thing by looking down to make sure that I wasn’t stepping on something that would find me flat on my face.
