Pretty Schmitty, those hills were BRUTAL!!

On Saturday morning was the dreaded Lake Chabot 10 miler. I ran, I conquered, and I came home coated with dirt and sweat. :(

I woke up Saturday morning, got dressed, ate a little food and headed off to Lake Chabot at about 6:45am. My stomach hurt the whole time. As much as I told myself this was no biggie, I've run 10 miles before, I've run at Lake Chabot before and I know I could do this, my body wasn't listening. :(

The first group was set to go out at 7:30 so before Coach started warming us all up, I went to the potty. After I came back, Coach had already gathered everyone together but since I didn't see them stretching, I thought I still had some time to chit chat before I joined them. After a few minutes we see the whole group running towards us so Claudia and I fell in behind them thinking we were doing the warm up run before we stretched. Instead of turning around and heading back the start, we kept going. Oh well, I guess we weren't doing our usual warm up and stretch!

Since the first time I ran Lake Chabot, I've hated it. Yeah it's pretty, but I've never been good at running hills and Lake Chabot us full of them. This time was no different. For our run on Saturday we started off by heading around the left side of the lake from the Marina. Up we went, down we went, rinse and repeat. Claudia and I ran the first semi-major hill but walked the rest. When I'm doing 10 miles, especially on a tougher course, my goal is to just do the damn thing, not necessarily do it quickly!

After going out 2 miles and back, we were back at our starting point. Claudia's knee and head were hurting her at this point so she decided to call it quits. Considering it had been 3 weeks since she last ran, and she was nursing a sore ankle and knee, she did a fantastic job! Now I was on my own for the rest of the run :(

After passing "GO" I headed out along the other side of the lake. The right side is the "less" hilly side-- at least the part that I had run before is. Little did I know what was in store for me! After almost 2 miles, the paved trail turns into a dirt fire road. And that's where it all went downhill (or in this case, literally uphill). The first part of the dirt trail is a VERY LONG hill. I have no problem admitting that I walked the entire hill (except when I saw Jeanette at the top and ran the last 50 yards :D). I think if I would have tried to run it, I would have died of a heart attack, rolled off the trail down the hill and into lake, never to be seen again, except by the fishies.


Towards the top of the hill was a fork in the trail. Left for the 10 milers and right for the 8 milers. Jeanette was waiting at the fork in the trail, taking pictures as people struggled up the hill. She pointed me to the left, telling me that I would "LOVE this part of the trail... it's so pretty in there amongst the trees." She also told me that this part of the course was known as the 10 Hills Trail because it's a series of "rolling" hills, but "don't worry, they're not bad". She lied. Some of those hills were so steep I didn't even run DOWN them. After running (or walking) for awhile, I saw a couple of people who were coming the other way and said that the water stop was just ahead. 10 minutes later, we hadn't reached the water stop. They lied to me too :( The next time someone told us we were almost there, I didn't believe them but they were actually telling the truth and after cresting the next hill we saw the water stop and the turn around up ahead. But now we had to go back the way we came, up and down those same damn 10 hills. Urg.

After being on my own for awhile, I did find a running partner along the way! One of the participants and I were neck and neck along the 10 hills trail. She'd pass me, then I'd pass her. Since the trail was pretty empty by the time we turned around, it was nice to be on the trail with someone else. We talked each other through the hills and finally we reached the fork in the road again. This time we got to go the other way, back to the start. I figured at this point, we HAD to start going downhill since it didn't seem we could climb anymore. Wrong again. We had one more big hill to go up before we would head back down to lake level. Less than a mile to the finish we finally got to the down hill! It was nice to run again, since I had been doing so much walking, and nice to have enough breath to chat with my running partner! Despite my filthy legs, sweaty body and worsening blisters, it was a great end to the run! Over 2 hours and a little over 10 miles after I had started, I was finished. :D

Saturday was also the honoree potluck so after hanging out for awhile, I headed back home. I ate some lunch, scrubbed off all the dirt and then took a nap... ahhh, heaven! I wasn't sore at all the rest of Saturday, but yesterday and today my calves are a little tight and my hip (joints?) are sore. But all in all I'm not as sore as I thought I was going to be after 10 miles of hills. :D And boy am I glad that run is over!