2011 Bradbury Scuffle Race Report

The morning dawned clear and bright, and Sam nicely slept in a bit, which was a welcome change! Ryan took off early to meet Ian and get things set up for the race, and Sam and I hung out until Jessi came over to babysit while we were gone. I managed to get to the park around 8:20 and even found a decent parking spot in the lower lot. For some reason I was feeling a bit discombobulated, and not really in a race mindset. I'm not quite sure why. Sometimes it is just hard to switch from my 'mama' role to race mode :-) I tried to shake that feeling off as I went out for an easy 1 mile warm up before heading across the street to the start. The Bradbury races are always so much fun, because just like at Pineland, so many of our friends are running! There were Trail Monsters everywhere, and it was fun catching up with everyone before and after the race :-)

I made a conscious effort to line up closer to the front, and ended up next to Jim and Julia. I figured I would be in good company, as Julia is one fast runner and Jim and I went back and forth during the Scuffle last year to finish pretty close together, with me eking out the "win" in the end. The race starts off downhill, and it is easy to go fast. But, I decided to just roll with it, and take what the trail was giving me. Just as we turned off the Snowmobile trail onto the single track, Jim put on a bit of a surge and snuck ahead. That was fine with me. He was going at a good pace and I followed along behind him for a while, finally deciding to pass a bit later as we headed down towards the Bat Cave. This put me right behind a young guy in orange, and I trailed him for quite some time before finally passing him too. Then, I was basically alone. How does that happen? It was only a six mile race, and there were 160 of us out there enjoying it! Despite not seeing or hearing anyone behind me for a while, I knew they all couldn't be that far back, so I was running ever so slightly scared. Not the best feeling, but good impetus to keep the pace up!! I passed two more guys, and got passed once along the way, and when we popped out of the woods onto the snowmobile trails, I decided to push as much as I could. I'm normally a bit timid on the downhills, but I didn't want Jim flying by me on them like he did last year! Near the end, just after the Link, I could hear the spectators at that corner cheering for those behind me. D@#*! I picked up the pace as much as I could as I hit the uphill on the Knight Woods trail. I couldn't quite catch the guy in front of me, but at least I didn't get passed right at the end!

I managed to finish in 49:49, a 15 second PR from last year, which I will happily take, and ended up coming in 3rd woman, which was pretty cool. I got to take home a Frontier gift certificate too - yum! Lots of fun, and as always, another awesome Trail Monster race! Thanks to Ian, Ryan and all the volunteers for putting on an excellent event! Also a big congrats to all the Trail Monsters who had great races out there today. It was a stacked field, with a lot of people putting up some great times.

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