Another week for the Winter Trail Run Series, this time the Solstice run held at Seward Park in Seattle.   Even though we are nearing the darkest day of the year the weather turned out to be pretty good for this one.  It was cold when I arrived to help setup in the morning but it wasn’t raining and the sun was starting to rise over Lake Washington.  We got setup done and registration went  smoothly for the fairly large event of about 260 runners.

Two distances today, 4.2 mile and 10k.  I’d done the 4.2 mile as a walk/trot a few years ago but this time went for the 10k since my mileage has been increasing.   I wore my Luna Osos with the Tabus today again since the trails in general are smooth and easy though the single track, as I would find out, was pretty darn muddy and covered in a lot of fallen trees which made for quite a few hurdles.   10k meant three laps of the course so I got to jump over the half dozen trees three times.   My feet and tights were covered in mud by the end but my feet stayed very dry with the Tabus.

The run went well, I started out fast and was shocked to see during the first lap I was pulling down a sub-8 minute pace most of the time.  The slight uphills and some crowding slowed me down a bit and after the first lap I pulled back a tad.  Ended up finishing in 52:54 which was pretty decent, my second fastest 10k ever and considering my fastest was dead flat I was pretty happy with this time.   In the overall standings for the series I was at 18/202 before this event and hopefully will go up a notch after today since I did beat at least one runner that was in front of me.   Next up the Absolution Run at St. Edwards on Jan 3rd.  I’m only doing the 4 mile at this one though may shift to the 8 if I’m feeling up for it but St. Edwards still scares me after my hamstring injury there a few years back.

My second event in the Winter Trail Run Series was at my old stomping grounds – the Redmond Watershed.  The last two years this event is a way below freezing ordeal but this year we had mild temperatures but with some wind and heavy rains threatening at any moment.  Luckily when I arrived for setup the rains were holding off and we got everything set up and registration done before even a sprinkle appeared.   I opted to run the 5-mile distance.  I had thought about increasing to the half but figured I’d wait until spring and not push it, it turned out to be a good move since the cold downpour happened about halfway through for the half marathon runners.

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