Lake McMurtry 25K Trail Race

This past Saturday, Cameron and I competed in the 25K Lake McMurtry Trail Race. The Wednesday before the race, we were talking about it, and Cameron said he wanted to run the 25K, and not the 12K. Since he will be running a half marathon in early May, and he had already run as far as 15K before, I decided to go ahead and let him try it. I got off work at 6 am Saturday morning, and we headed out to the race site, arriving just before the 50K racers took off at 8 am.

The strong southeast winds made it a bit chilly waiting the 30 minutes for our 25K start, but 8:30 finally rolled around, and race director Ken Childress gave us some course instructions and sent us on our way. Cameron was a bit apprehensive about this Leap O' Doom that Ken talked about, and we did not have to wait long to come face to face with this challenge. About 1/2 mile into the race, the Leap O' Doom appeared, and Cameron wouldn't make the leap across. So I had to pick him up, and together we successfully made the leap. The next few miles went by fairly quickly, as Cameron was in a very chatty mood, apparently excited to be running his first 25K. About 5 miles in, I noticed that the temperature was climbing rapidly, which was not good news for me as I do not handle heat all that well. We made it through the first half of the race in good shape, limiting our walk breaks to mostly the uphills, and staying hydrated at all the aid stations. Cameron was also helping himself to all the snacks available at the aid stations.

The second half of the race started out OK, but eventually my legs became shot, so walking became the norm the last few miles, with just a little bit of running mixed in. Cameron said he was still feeling good, and he probably could have run off and finished well ahead of me, but we had decided to stay together so he wouldn't get lost. The first time by the aid station on the south trail, Cameron decided that a coke sounded good. About 1/2 mile past the aid station, he decided that coke wasn't such a good idea in the middle of a run, as it was making his stomach hurt. This didn't last long however, and we made it the last few miles without any complaints at all from Cameron. As for me, I was constantly complaining that my legs were going to fall off if I ran much more, and I was hot, so I was ready to be done. We finally made it back to the final 50 meter or so uphill stretch to the finish line. Cameron took off in a sprint at that point, and I ran it in as well, but at a much slower pace. Cameron crossed the finish line in 3:36:30, 7 seconds ahead of me, and in 39th place overall out of 49 finishers.

Cameron did an amazing job in his first 25K, never complaining at all, and putting up with dad having to walk a lot towards the end of the race. His total distance run was 15.5 miles, bringing his monthly total to 17.5 miles, and his yearly total to 151.8 miles.