I have found something new to fall in love with: Trail running. I've spent the last two Saturdays with the MUDD (Mchenry County Ultrarunning Dudes and Dudettes) group. Every Saturday AND Sunday morning each weekend, these awesome, strong and fearless men and woman brave the elements and run through the incredible hills, over the rocks and roots and find their way (how? I really have no idea!) through the unmarked trails in Sternes woods. So you think it's incredible to run 3.1 miles? Or you think I'm crazy to love running half-marathons? Is the thought of running 26.2 so far off from anything you can imagine? Well, ULTRA runners run farther than that. The term ULTRA refers to any race longer than a marathon; whether it be 50K, 50 miles, 100 miles or even longer!! Now, these people are crazy!
In a good way, of course.
Here's a picture of the group I went out with a little over a week ago:
In a good way, of course.
Here's a picture of the group I went out with a little over a week ago:
That morning, we ran two different loops for a total of 6.49 miles. It's fun to see it all plotted out on my Garmin express software. You can see the actual map of where you ran, what your splits were, statistics like when you were your fastest, slowest, etc. But what's the coolest is to see the elevation gained and lost.
It obviously takes longer to do these runs because speed is not the goal...at all. Which is a nice change of pace. Ha Ha! get it? Change of pace!
I'm quite clumsy, so I really needed to be looking down a lot to make sure I wasn't going to trip on any rocks or roots or animal bones (I mean, FOR real! I am not exaggerating when I say this: we were in the middle of THE WOODS!!) But it was so exciting to be right in the middle of nature, climbing insane hills. I felt exhilarated! I felt tough! I felt...tired! I compared the stats of this run with other typical runs in the neighborhood and was excited to see that most of my runs have an elevation gain/loss below 50 feet. Can you read the elevation gain in the screenshot above?
300, 50 flippin 5 feet people! Crazy and so so cool. These MUDD runners are no joke. They just keep going out and back and out and back. That day I did two different loops. Last Saturday, I just did one 5 mile loop. I'm looking forward to doing more runs with these crazy, super nice peeps. The Frozen Gnome 10K is just 2 weeks away and it's in these woods, so it's been nice to get somewhat familiar with the trails. Looks like it's going to get much colder before January 10, so it will be interesting to see what the weather and trail conditions will be like. But I'm up for the challenge!
The next time I write, it will be 2015! I'm so excited for all of the things coming up in the next year! Next time I'll have more information to share about some of the events on my To-Do list. I hope you all have a wonderful New Years, friends! Thanks so much for reading!
I'm quite clumsy, so I really needed to be looking down a lot to make sure I wasn't going to trip on any rocks or roots or animal bones (I mean, FOR real! I am not exaggerating when I say this: we were in the middle of THE WOODS!!) But it was so exciting to be right in the middle of nature, climbing insane hills. I felt exhilarated! I felt tough! I felt...tired! I compared the stats of this run with other typical runs in the neighborhood and was excited to see that most of my runs have an elevation gain/loss below 50 feet. Can you read the elevation gain in the screenshot above?
300, 50 flippin 5 feet people! Crazy and so so cool. These MUDD runners are no joke. They just keep going out and back and out and back. That day I did two different loops. Last Saturday, I just did one 5 mile loop. I'm looking forward to doing more runs with these crazy, super nice peeps. The Frozen Gnome 10K is just 2 weeks away and it's in these woods, so it's been nice to get somewhat familiar with the trails. Looks like it's going to get much colder before January 10, so it will be interesting to see what the weather and trail conditions will be like. But I'm up for the challenge!
The next time I write, it will be 2015! I'm so excited for all of the things coming up in the next year! Next time I'll have more information to share about some of the events on my To-Do list. I hope you all have a wonderful New Years, friends! Thanks so much for reading!