Trick or Run

It's late October already and Run the North Shore's final trail race of the season is flagged and ready. By 9:30 tomorrow the trails will be riddled with ghosts, goblins, and whatever other freakish garb folks can find in their closets. The trails are muddying as I write this and the wind is amping up to cover the route in ugliness - some downed trees, leaves covering holes, and roots, and who knows, maybe a forest ghost or goblin.

I had a great run at this last year as I battled out the last 10k with Katrina Driver, but this year she'll have to battle with the Lazy Trail Runner or Ms. Polizzi, who I saw registering today. It should be a great race and if Nicola Gildersleeve races, it'll get even more interesting.

It'll be great to see the finish for a change. In keeping with my resolution to only run shorter than 15k through the fall, I will run the 9.8k course. It'll be fast and over-with in under 50 minutes I hope. The course record is 40 minutes flat and is held by a real turn-over guy so I should be out there at least a couple minutes after that. It works well with my recent XC races, but isn't just running across the grass or up a few small hills. A smattering of stairs should give me the lactic hell I'm looking for. Regardless, I'm very excited about the current rainfall and the possibility of some seriously ugly trail conditions. Like a little kid in a puddle, I'll be coming home wet and messy no matter how long I'm out there.