Every month at Intel some teams go through and write monthly status reports and I was just thinking about how my goal of running a marathon a month and writing about it is pretty similar. It is my own personal monthly status report where I am able to reflect on where I am and how I got here. This month I started out the year with a 34 mile race on trails to shake things up. It was held on Saturday Jan 18th at Capital Forest in Olympia WA. I have never run this one so I was very excited to run it, but also a bit worried as I knew it was all trails with climbing and there was no elevation profile to be found online. Nonetheless I signed up for it and then a last minute work trip came up that had me traveling out of country for the week before the event. I figured it would be fine as long as I was home in time and I would manage the jet lag. I am so glad I did. I went to the UK with a great work biz partner and friend to work on a project. It was a very short trip and we had to get a lot done, but it was also my first time visiting the UK which made it very exciting!
We ended up working so hard the first 2 days
we were there that we were able to make it out to Stonehenge from Swindon
before sun set on the last day. I am so
glad we made time for this trip. Our
local biz partner drove us out which was awesome because I also was able to
experience driving on the other side of the road!!!
I also enjoyed
checking out the building and the beautiful setting while we made our way.
Once we made it
to Stonehenge it started pouring rain which meant there was not a lot of people
there. It also made picture taking fun,
but we did get a slight sun break so we took as many pictures as we could! It was a lot of fun and very neat to learn
the history and see this historic site!
After seeing
the sites at Stonehenge we headed over to the Red Lion to have dinner and see
more historic sites including more Stonehenge like rocks and a well inside the
pub where someone hundreds of years ago fell into, and now it is a table top!
So after all the
fun was a 26 hour journey back home which had many obstacles including a cab
driver that would only take cash when we only had credit, almost missing our
flight out of London due to traffic, and of course getting rerouted to land in
Bend due to fog in Portland and delaying us even further from getting
home. But I will not complain too much because on
the 11 hour flight from Heathrow to LAX I had a window row of 3 seats completely
to myself! It was like stretching out
and flying first class for the economy price!
Great time. It was awesome to be
home to my Jash and my beautiful welcome home flowers! I won the husband lottery it is true!
So on to the
race! I decided to sleep in my bed the
night before the race after all the travel which meant I had a 4am wake up for
a 7am start, this was not bad at all and I will do this for any races in that area
from now on! Saves so much time and
money and I sleep better in my own bed anyways!
The start of
the race was pretty dark and I only opted to bring my light weight light because
I thought I would only need it for a wee bit before the sun came out and then I
would just have to carry it. The trail
was a bit more technical than I anticipated, or I have just no been running
trails at all! But I met up with Joe and
Jackie who made a Mel sandwich out of me and lite the way for the entire first
hour which was lifesaving and I didn’t even fall!
The day was
just perfect for a run with morning fog, bright sun in the day, and no rain in
sight. It made for beautiful amazing views
of the sun rise and on top of the climbs, I only wish that I would have brought
my camera on this adventure. I would
have been taking pictures the whole way.
It was just so pretty.
I on the other
hand was not as pretty. I did fall later
on and got all muddy and tweaked my back but not too bad. The climbing was crazy, or felt crazy to me,
so I would love to actually see an elevation profile on this event. I probably should figure out how to download
it from my watch! It was overall a great
day though. I met some very nice people
and it just reminds me why ultra trail races really are such wonderful fun events. I was happy to meet back up with Jackie and
Joe for the finish which was another great time and they really pulled me
through the last miles when my quads were yelling at me for the downhill antics
I pulled!
I was able to
finish in time to drive home and play cards against humanity with friends at
our house! That was a great successful
day in my books! Looking forward to my
next adventure LDM and Ragnar del Sol in Feb!
