Blood Sweat Beers! Shannon

You know, life just keeps getting in the way of me keeping up in the blog world.  If it's not work, family, or playing, my computer goes on the blitz.  But here I am and here I will continue to come, even if it's only a few times a month.  I really want to do better here, but...........

Anyways, last weekend was the Blood Sweat Beers Trail Run up in Auburn.  I had originally signed up for the 10.4 miler, however, I had suffered from some kind of funky virus (swelling, joint pain & fatigue) the week leading up to the race.  So I decided it would be best to downgrade to the 5.7 miler, since I hadn't gotten in any running for a week and my legs were just jello.  I'm glad I did!

The FTR's were there in full force, we were totally representing our awesome group.  A couple of our members brought pop-up canopies, we had our FTR banner, and we took over the end of the parking lot.

(photo provided by Jenni Edge - FTR member)

I'm smack dab in the middle, sitting, white shirt

Before the race,  brothers Dan and Dennis Folk, found me and we took pics.

Dennis and Dan

Me and Dan

They were both boldly doing the 10.4 miler, their first trail race (boy were they in for a surprise - don't worry they survived, and at least Dennis is willing to do another one, forgot to ask Dan if he would - LOL).

The BSB is a tough course.  To me, it's not a true trail race because there is way too much pavement involved.

You start off on pavement for about a half a mile (downhill), then you hit a single track (up hill), then you hit the arroyo and stay along it for about a mile.  This was the prettiest part of the race, as far as I was concerned.

(photo provided by Jeffrey - FTR member)

Once you get off this you head straight down an awesome, technical switchback, another favorite of mine.  However, this race seemed to have a lot of trail running novices, and I got stuck behind several runners that don't know about moving over when you're the pokie puppy holding up the train.  Trail running is a lot like driving, if you've got more than 5 cars (runners) behind you, it's time to pull over and let 'em pass.  So I got a little discouraged not being able to do what I love most, fly down the hills.  So as soon as we came out of the steep switchback we hit a road, and I took off.  I didn't want to be anywhere near the novices as I knew we were coming to another single track that was going to go downhill again.  When I got there, I did what I love to do, I flew!!

Then WHAM you come to the bottom of that and you're now on a fireroad that starts your ascent back to the start.  You climb, and climb, and climb.  No more flying for Shannon, it was now all uphill and walking.  There isn't much left for running, but when it did flatten out or tease with a little downhill, I ran.  But with jello legs (virus) I didn't have much for the climbs.  Once I came to the top of the final, ugly hill, it flattened out to take you into the finish and I ran as fast as my tired legs would take me.

I finished in 1 hr 21 minutes, 37th out of 61 in my age group, 255th out of 341 overall.

Not to shabby for having been sick the week prior.

I grabbed some food and a beer (you get 2 for finishing - woo hoo) even though I wasn't feeling like I deserved a beer, not to mention it was only 10ish in the morning still. Wobbled over to the FTR tents and plopped in my chair.

It felt good to sit.

(photo provided by Jeffrey - FTR member)

I only drank half of mine :(

I was glad it was over!

I'm feeling much better now, thankfully.  Now it's time to gear up for the Sierra Endurance trail marathon that I will be doing at the end of September.  Here come the long runs again.

But this weekend I'm heading up to Squaw Valley to do the Squaw Mountain Run/Hike.  I'll most likely just be hiking as it's 2000 feet of climbing from start to finish (a lil over 3 miles).  I don't see much running happening tomorrow.  But a bunch of us FTRs are going, so it will be fun.

Sunday I'll get in a long run with Pam and a few other friends.  Hopefully Pam's heel holds out.  I need my trail buddy!

I'll post again after the Squaw "run" as I'm sure I'll be taking tons of pics.

You can see all the pics for BSB HERE.

Stay dirty!