I couldn’t run the 5-mile Watershed run last week because I was just overbooked so I moved my registration to the new Cedar Mountain run in Renton for today.  I wish the weather would have been like last week, instead it was pouring rain all night long and was still pouring this morning when I showed up at Petrovitsky Park.  There were very few runners since this was sort of a last minute event, we had 29 signed up ahead of time and had about a half dozen day of registrations show up so registration was pretty uneventful.

Luckily the rain seemed to die out just as we were about to start the run at 9:30.   The few of us gathered at the start for a brief talk and off we went.  The course started on pavement in the park and followed the road for just under a mile before heading up into single track that was some of the softest single track I’ve been on around here.  We then crossed another road and onto a bit more technical single track but still not nearly as bad as Soaring Eagle, even though it was wet and slick in a few spots with some roots and fallen trees to contend with.   The 5-milers did a lollipop at the end of this stretch on some gravel roads and more single track while the 10-milers branched off to actually run up Cedar Mountain itself.   Once I hit the turn-off I was on my own, I didn’t see another 5 mile runner until I was back on the pavement.     On the last stretch coming into the park I got passed by another runner, I was taking it pretty easy on the pavement since I’m not used to running on it at all these days.    Crossed the finish in 46:24, at a 9:05 pace,  quite a bit faster than my 9:40 pace at Soaring Eagle or my over 10 minute pace at all the other winter events.  Maybe I just run better in the mud and muck or all this running on Tiger is doing the trick and getting me into good shape again.