My Birthday-Nature Center Earth Day 5k Trail Run

A few months ago when I went through a race sign up spree, I decided that if I could find one, it would be fun to do a 5k as a birthday gift to myself. It turned out that there were four different 5ks in my town the day of my birthday, including one that was only 2 miles away from my house at the local Nature Center. I am still in half marathon training and my long run that weekend called for me to do an 8 mile run. I figured if I hopped on the trail by my house, ran to the Nature Center (2 miles), did the 5k (3.1 miles, but actually it turned out to be 3.28 miles), and then ran home and added on a little extra distance the 8 miles would be covered. Perfect!

The day before the race I went to pick up my bib and Brooks longsleeve technical t-shirt (I have one from another race too and these are easily becoming my favorite running t-shirts!). There was one woman in line in front of me who was picking up seven packets for her family members. I noticed she had already taken all of her bibs and that the top bib number on the remaining stack was #29. I would be turning 27 the next day and thought how fun it would be to wear a #27 bib, so I explained to the woman that it was my birthday the next day and I was wondering if she would consider taking the #29 bib and letting me have the #27 bib from her stack. She said of course I could have it and thought that was such a neat idea. Thank you nice mystery woman for making my day! What perfect timing!

The next morning I woke up with the girls, drank a quick cup of coffee and had some toast with maple almond butter and got ready to go. It was a pretty chilly morning, so I ended up wearing long tights, a long sleeve shirt with my half-marathon jacket over it, some cushy Balega socks and my Brooks Cascadia trail shoes. I brought along my phone so I could have music if I wanted it, but never ended up using it. I headed out in the beautiful sunshine to run the two miles to the race.

When I got to the Nature Center I walked around a little and people watched and then heard my name being called. My friend Christie was there with her family and she was also running the 5k, so we decided to run it together. Her oldest daughter was running the Raccoon Race (.6 mile kids race) after our race was over so her husband was going to stay with the girls while we ran and they headed inside to make paper crowns. The race seemed like it took forever for it to start, even though it started right on time, but since we were early we had awhile to wait and had some trouble staying warm. It had snowed a bit earlier and I think we were all silently praying that it wouldn't snow any more! Finally 10:00 rolled around and we were off!

Me and Christie pre-race.

This was my first ever trail run and I was in for a bit of an awakening as to how hard it actually is. We started off on the winding downhill trail that wove through the forest next to a stream then up some wooden/dirt stairs and across a couple of very slippery bridges. I am pretty clumsy as is, but when you factor in sticks, muddy trails, snow covered bridges and stairs, well lets just say I was very cautious! The last thing I wanted was to get hurt two weeks before my first half-marathon. Running through the woods was absolutely amazing and I will definitely be doing more trail runs in the future. Although it's much more of a challenge to run on dirt, my legs felt great with the change from running on pavement.

I'm in light blue in the middle and Christie is in front of me in green with the bandana over her face.

We ran our way up and down more hills and through the woods until we reached a hill around mile two that was so steep I only saw one person run the whole way up. I told Christie I had to walk up it and she ran ahead up the hill and then I caught up with her when we reached the prairie portion of the trail and the water stop. The prairie was pretty windy and chilly and when we reached the top of the cliff where you could literally see for miles it was breathtaking. I wished I had time to stop and stare for awhile, and I will have to go back sometime soon to take some pictures.

The cold, open prairie section of the race.

We headed back into the woods and down a looooong hill with wooden steps that I ended up slowly jogging down because I was afraid I would slip down them if I ran. I really need to build up my downhill confidence. I'm always afraid to just gun it down the hill even on pavement. We ran up another small couple of hills and finally ended our race.

Post-race. Tired, but happy!

This was probably the most technically challenging race I have ever run. It was incredibly fun, but so very difficult at the same time. We kept a pretty good pace throughout the whole race, despite the hills, and ended up with a time of 38:54 over a course of 3.28 miles. Not bad for my first trail run! Thanks for running with me Christie, it's always more fun with a buddy!

Thanks to Christie and Kalamazoo Nature Center for the pictures I grabbed from Facebook.