Trial @ Trail 51 15k

It was a lot of fun to race with Jace Nye and Bryce Peterson.  I hadn't seen Jace pretty much since we got back from our missions seven years ago from Bulgaria.  I was pretty sure I wouldn't stand a chance against him, and what do you know, I was right.  I was hoping that I would be able to stay ahead of Bryce and I knew that he was in pretty decent shape considering he won the Huntsville Marathon recently.

The first mile was pretty easy and I was running comfortably behind Jace but ahead of Bryce.  Once the massive uphill came I was reminded that I'm not the greatest uphill runner and Bryce quickly caught up to me. We ran together for the rest of the painful uphill, but when we got to the downhill I realized that it's not his forte.  Unfortunately I got really bad side aches that didn't go away for the rest of the race and kept me from going all out.  I don't think I've had side aches that bad during a race ever, so peanut butter sandwiches are no longer going to be my pre-race meal.  Even without the side aches, there is no way I would have caught up to Jace, but with Bryce running conservatively downhill and taking wrong turns I guess I didn't really need to go faster.  I finished overall second, but I still managed to win a pair of shoes from the raffle so I was happy.  Overall great race.