Hog's Hunt 25k

Saturday, April 14. Woke up at 4am, made coffee, cooked breakfast for the road and loaded my gear in the car.  Lucky for me, I had company for this trip, my granddaughter, my son, and my nephew.

Granddaughter, Juliana, had never been to a race with me before, though her dad has accompanied me on a couple of occasions.  My nephew, Bill, was running his first trail race, and it would also be the first time he had run more than 10 miles.  We were both signed up for the 25k.

The temps were a little warmer than usual for this time of year, so I cautioned Bill never to leave an aid station with a water bottle that was not topped off, at the same time making a mental note of that fact for myself.

For some reason, I still don't think I have the fueling worked out for these shorter distance events... not sure if I should be mixing fat and protein with the carbs.  It seems I either need to go into them fasted (I do my training runs/walks of up to 10 miles with no fuel and fasted), or fuel with the sweet potato mixture I have come up with for longer events.  Hammer gel mixed with some egg white protein just did NOT get it for me.  I was able to maintain a 12:11 per mile pace all the way to about 10 miles, then the wheels fell off.  I am still not sure if it was due to the heat and high humidity of the improper fueling.  One thing for certain, I did drink plenty of fluids.  Thanks to my friends from H-T Rex, I was able to cool down with 2.8 miles to go by dumping multiple cups of ice water over my head.  Man, did that feel good!

No pr for me this time because the last 5.5 miles were a lot slower than the first 10, but everyone knows you can't PR every time.  3:28 and some change... 42nd out of 80 total females is not bad in my book.

I will add a start and finish line photo a little later.