I knew going into this one that it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.  I’ve never run the course and I wasn’t familiar with the trails, but when the top of my class finished 8 km in over 40 minutes last year, I knew I was going to get into trouble.

I started out strong, and completely ignorant.  My first two splits were 4:19 and 4:22.  I was aiming for about 4:30, so that was great.  Then I found out that there were hills.  Oh, and even though it was a trail run, over half of the trail was exposed, and did I mention it was hot and sunny today?  Finally, I made it to the woods, but even though it was shady, there were still hills.  And three river crossings which were nearly knee-deep.  One of the banks was so steep that they had a couple of strong young men to help pull the runners up.  Then, just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, there is this monstrously steep hill, and just for fun there is a sprinkler running at the top, so it’s a muddy mess.  Somehow I got through all of that… and that was just 4 km.  We did it all again, but much slower the second time around.  I actually walked up the final hill, which turned out to be a good call, because I could barely get my footing at a walking pace.

Oh, yeah, there was a mud pit at the end, about 25 m long, but it was almost anticlimactic by that point.  I had survived.  My time?  Not anywhere near the 36 minutes I think I could run an 8 km road course in.  But still good enough for third in my class: 42:16.  I’ll take it.