Molalla River Trail Race (9/23/17)

The Molalla River Trail Race 10K has become a tradition!

It's a friendly, well-organized race on a gorgeous trail system outside Molalla. It used to be in October, but last year's huge windstorm moved the race to November. This year, it was held in September to avoid fall storms. I was a bit bummed because I thought we'd miss the fall colors, but the forest didn't disappoint :)

After last year lazily scanning the instructions and missing the shuttle, we arrived nice and early at Foothills Community Church to jump on the bus. The long, bumpy, windy ride into the hills is a little rough for people with motion sickness. Urp.

We had plenty of time to use the potties, jog around, and ditch our warm-up clothes before walking up the hill to the starting line.

The first part of this course is a long uphill. I went out a bit too fast, not realizing how tired my legs were from my half marathon the weekend before, and had to walk up "the wall" ("a monster 500-ft hill over 3/4 of a mile").

Unfortunately, I didn't have much left after cresting and heading into the very narrow, windy, rolling back half. I didn't feel nearly as strong as the previous years, but it was definitely because of that half marathon in Newport just a few days before. I can't get too upset about that :)

As in previous years, I fell into a pack of runners, all struggling toward the end. It's such a friendly race. We joked, laughed, and encouraged each other as we neared the finish.

Then we took a hard left off the single track and onto the downhill gravel road, the finish line ALMOST in sight. I was running right next to a guy with whom I'd been leapfrogging for a while, and we both kicked. Really hoping to beat him, I kicked a bit too soon and too hard and couldn't maintain. Then a woman in a pink jacket found another gear and zoomed past me really fast! I hate it when I'm the one getting passed at the finish line :)

This handsome guy was waiting for me at the end :)

Volunteers handed me a water bottle and my medal as I tried to catch my breath. Then I spent a few minutes chatting/commiserating with my little running pack as we all finished - congratulations all around. Such a friendly race!

My official time was 1:10:13, an 11:19 average. That earned me 53/129 overall, 19/72 females and 2/12 in my age division!

My GPS had the course long at 6.34 miles (instead of 6.2), so my watch average was 11:05.

Last year, Dad and I reached the final stretch at the same time, and I chose to finish with him at his speed. But this year's 1:10:13 is a tiny PR over the first year's 1:10:56 - YAY!!!!!

We walked down to the finish area, grabbed our clothes from the bag check, swapped wet clothes for dry (just from sweat - the rain held off!), ate some amazing hot, salty chicken noodle soup, bread, and candy, hung out for a bit in the woods, then boarded a bus for the return to town.

Oh, and photos with Bigfoot - a must!

This is a great race - can't wait for next year :)