Brandi Cowan's Trail Marathon
Have you ever shown up for a race and you din't bring any socks? Well, now I can't say that I haven't. It happened this last Saturday. I got to Coto De Caza on time for the 7:00 am trail marathon race; but when I realized that I didn't bring socks, my first though was that I was going to run it anyway. I wasn't going to just sit and watch after driving 60+ miles one way from my home in Los Angeles county. I asked the other runners to see if they had spare socks, but they did not. By the way, this is not the first time something like this has happened to me, the last time I forgot my running shoes; but I ran anyway in my thongs/slippers. I was just not going to wear socks and put my bare foot into the shoe.
After more digging, Jeanette had spare socks that was a few sizes too small for me. Jeanette, if you are reading this, I have nothing against your socks; they were just a little small. Thank you, Jeanette, for lending them to me. However, a few minutes later Rob showed up and he did have spare socks; Rob and I wear the same size and I was saved. Thanks, Rob.
it was a beautiful sunny day in Southern California with blue skies and postcard perfect scenery. Nice and cool in the morning but it got much warmer during the day. I held to my pace at the start while everyone, it seemed, rushed ahead up the steep climb. There's no lack of climbing on this course, the total elevation was 5,750 feet.
I caught much of the field on the first two laps, and there were now just two others ahead of me. I keep to my pace and on lap 6 one of the two leaders dropped back and I passed him. Feels good to be catching people. I was about 7 minutes behind the lone leader and I wasn't going to catch him, so I stopped pushing and saved my legs for Javalina, a 100 miler I'm doing this coming week. I ended up with a second place trophy, not too shabby.
Until the next ultraholic adventure, happy trails.
