25K Chubb Trail Race

Bob and I completed a pretty cool and really intense race a few weeks ago. It was the 25K Chubb Trail Race put on by the St. Louis Ultrarunners Group. I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into when I signed up for the race. Bob was doing it and I was anxious to do something different instead of running a huge race on the city streets of St. Louis. I had run a 6 mile trail race a few years ago and it was hard, so you would have thought I would have given this more thought.

Now these trails are not paved and flat and easy to run. I am talking about many climbs, ups and downs, tons and tons of rocks, tree roots, single track most of the way...it is intense. Your heart rate spikes so fast from the hills (or at least mine done). It is MUCH different than running on the street or sidewalk. It is HARD. Bob was much more of a natural with trail running and it was a big challenge for me. I barely got through my training and I wanted to give up and not even run the race but I stuck with it. Luckily I had a friend (Bridget) running the race too and my great running buddies Lara and Brad kindly came along and got us started with our training.

The conditions of the trails were not perfect (it had rained for days before) but the temperature was great. The mud in some areas was almost comical and I fell in it once which was actually pretty funny. I wish I had pictures to share of the actual trails but the trails are too narrow for someone to really get up there and take pictures. The pictures below were from the flat parts of the race.

Lucky us.... we started the race off on a BIG hill. You can't tell from the picture but it was not an easy way to start a race!

Here is Bob starting off strong!

These pictures were on a flat part after completing about 3 miles of intense trails. The flat parts felt so good!

And here I am....

We basically ran from one end of a trail to the other end and back...about 15.5 miles. The hardest part of the race (I think) came at about mile 12. At mile 12 started a 300 ft. (30 stories) .75 mile climb. Bob ran it so well (only walked about 15 seconds of that crazy climb). Bridget and I weren't as skilled as Bob and had to walk some of that hill. We both broke down around that part and felt like we could barely even lift our legs. It was hard. After we got up the hill, the last few miles went much better. The finish line even came sooner than we were thinking (we never ran the last part before in our training).

Here is Bob finishing. He finished in an impressive 14th place with a time of 2:12 (8:32 min. pace). 

Bridget and I finishing...in 47th and 48th place (out of 73 runners) at a time of 2:57 (11:26 min. pace). I know...a lot slower than I do in a regular race but again, I am not a natural at this. I gave it my best though and I am happy with how I finished!

Now, can you believe that there was also a 50K event for this race!!!  Doing that twice....no way!!!