Dirty Love 10k Trail Run

Brrrr! When I arrived at the race site, I initially sat in my car contemplating taking a DNS. I thought about running inside the shelter, picking up my race bib and mug, dashing back to my warm car, and driving back to my warm house! But when I went inside the shelter, saw all the runners hanging out, smiling and chatting, I knew I couldn't leave. Time to suck it up! Afterall, it was 18 degrees and the wind wasn't THAT bad...yet!

We lined up for a cross country-style start. As we listened to the race director say that runners will be crossing a creek during the first mile, I glanced over to my warm car. Hmmm...I could just slide out of the crowd unnoticed and drive away in my warm, DRY car. But alas, I reminded myself I do not DNS (except the one time when I had rotovirus. Today I was healthy so no excuse.) A couple more announcements and we were off trampling through the fluffy snow. This might actually be fun. Could that be?

The creek crossing at a quarter-mile in caused an 8-minute log jam for everyone to cross. No biggie because this wasn't a "race" to me, but rather was a great excuse to run 6.2 miles with company. After about 20 minutes in, I was over-the-top happy. All body parts felt good and I wasn't going to die of frostbite. Good fun! The volunteers were great at water stops at 2.5 miles and 4 miles. Loved the ups and downs of the trail and enjoyed the beautiful view afforded to all of us on this snowy morning.

I crossed the finish line with a huge smile and gave out many thank you's to all the kidnd volunteers. We are lucky to have such an active running community here in Northern Ohio.

Post-race, I grabbed coffee and hot cocoa for my girls and we had great fun playing Country Dance on the Wii. What a great start to Sunday!