This morning I decided to stare the monster in the eyes. The monster in my area is known as Umstead Park, it’s a state park full of hills in top of hills in top of hills. In the fall, it hosts a 100 mile ultra race so you know it’s legit. I had my bagel with peanut butter, water and half a Pepsi before I strapped up my hydration Pak and headed out. It was about 1 1/4 miles down before you reach the entrance and the fun begins. It rained pretty hard yesterday but I didn’t really know how hard until I started towards the entrance. In the way down you pass a lake and when I looked for the lake, I realized I was basically running in it. The lake had flooded so much that it was running over the trail and I watched a fish leap out of the water a foot away from me. I made it down to the entrance and entered. One good thing about the rain is it made the trail pretty soft so impact wasn’t that bad. So many hills and they come back-to-back so not much time to recovery. You want to stop but you can’t. Around mile 5 I almost took an unexpected swim. It was shady in the park and I also was wearing shades, so when I made a left turn I happened to lift my shades up just in time to see the trail was totally under water 5 feet in front of me. Umstead had numerous trails so I just made a detour and connected to another trail. Passed a small burial plot I had never noticed previously before hitting my halfway point and heading back. I actually felt like my pace picked up on the way back. At runs end, I had done 13 miles with a pace of 9’20”. I ate the monster for breakfast. #fitness #running #marathon #seenonmyrun
TMilesAndRunning 