I’m starting to get in a groove with my racing routine and again took a more relaxed approach to this race and focused on having fun vs. running a fast time. As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, I typically stress out over hitting every workout (I even skipped my run on Friday?!!?!?!) and get overly nervous on race day – leading to less-than-ideal results. Not this time! By attempting to maximize the amount of fun I had instead of the fastest splits possible, I ended up having a pretty dang good race!

For what I enjoy, conditions on race day were amazing: cool, semi-frozen ground, and plenty of tricky parts due to snow/rain the day before (on top of the already technical Superior Hiking Trail). The folks over at Adventure Running Company continue to impress me with their races and did a fantastic job ensuring runner safety!

Although this spring/summer/fall was spent training for shorter distances, I was feeling really good heading into this trail half marathon. Just a week before the race I struggled with overheating during a workout, well, because it was freaking 78 degrees! Luckily I didn’t have to worry about that with temps in the high-20’s and low-30’s for race day.

I started in the first wave so I could get done earlier in the day and go be with my family after that (9 AM start time). I was in the second pair of that first wave. I ended up taking the lead between 1-1.5 miles in, running my own race, and focusing on the fun factor (oh, and my footing)! For the first time in a longer race, I had my nutrition/hydration dialed in perfectly, and it paid off. I was able to maintain a solid pace throughout the race without totally falling apart at some point in the later stages. I was almost expecting it to happen but it never did! I won my heat, said hi to a buddy who ran down to the finish line, and headed home to see the fam/get stuff done around the house.

Then, due to the racing format, I continued to check results to see how my time would stack up against all of the other waves going off throughout the day. Well…

I ended up taking 1st place overall – with the official race timing having me at 1:56:51!! I had never won a trail race longer than 5k before, so it was a pretty exciting moment, even if it was delayed by several hours and I was at home 🙂

I really enjoyed the course and had an absolute blast — mission accomplished! As the lead photo shows, I received a couple neat growlers after the race as well (frosty at the time of this photo!) – I can’t wait to go fill them up!

Congrats to all who participated in the half marathon & 50k, and thanks to the race directors/volunteers who make such a wonderful event in Duluth possible!