Daddy Daughter Running: Striders Winter Racing Circuit 10 Miles

Well, we did it. As my friend Cami said: We conquered that bitch. And a bitch it was. It truly was a hard course. The hardest I have ever ran.

Yesterday was the Striders 10 miler. I have never ran so many hills for so long in my life. I ran most of this race with my head down because it was just so hard to keep your head up. You would just reach a crest in a hill and look up only to see more hill. You would round a corner thinking the hill had to be over only to find out it wasn't. Of course with all this uphill climbing there has to be downhill. But, for me, this downhill wasn't a benefit. Normally I like to fly on the downhill but after 6 miles the downhill was just as hard as the uphill. OK Maybe not quite as hard as the uphill but it didn't really help me that much.

The first 6 miles we were comfortable with because it is the course that they used for the 10k and we had just ran it last week. So we knew what to expect. This doesn't necessarily make it any easier though. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Sometimes you don't want to know about the upcoming hills. I am telling you we were both really glad we didn't know about the hill climb just after the mile 6 water station. It just kept going and going and going.....and going. Then there was a nice long downhill but at mile 9 there was another climb. Short, but still a climb. I was determined to make it up the hill but I couldn't do it. I ended up walking. I don't think I would have had it in me to start running again until a guy came up behind me and encouraged me to go on. That was all it took and I was off again. Finally I rounded the corner into the Dee Event Center parking lot and headed to the finish line. Me and my dad ran the first mile together but I lost him on the first downhill and didn't see him after that. I never looked back because frankly I didn't have the energy to turn around. To my surprise he crossed the finish line just a few minutes after me. Way to go Tom!

You might be wondering how my knee held up. Well I will tell ya. It survived. I didn't feel much pain at all. Once I found out what was truly causing my type of knee pain I did a ton of googling to find out what to do to fix the problem. I bought an appropriate knee band to wear, borrowed my mom and dad's foam roller and learned a ton of new stretches. I was faithful all week with stretching and icing and luckily it paid off. I also tried to shorten my stride on the downhills so I wasn't pounding the pavement so hard. I did get slight knee pain on and off but nothing that slowed me down. Now I just need to stay disciplined because we have a big 20 miler coming up.

**STATS**

Distance: 10 miles

Time: 1:33:55

Pace: 9:23/min/mile

TOM

Time: 1:37:33

Pace: 9:41/min/mile

Bro-in-Law Mike Merrill

Time: 1:14:07

Pace: 7:25/min/mile

Temperature: 45 degrees

Time of day: 8:00 a.m

Gettin' ready to head to Weber State

After the race we met up with some of our fellow running buddies.

Mike Merrill, Tom, Adam Arnell.

Daddy Daughter Team

Cindy & Tom. This is a good friend of my dad's. She is the one who told us about the awesome run from mountain road to the bottom. She just earned the rock star medal in the rock n roll series for running 4 marathons and 4 halves back to back. WOW!