Psycho Night Trail Run Aug 8

Whew! I'm finally getting caught up with entries! I was so sad to not still be on vacation but this race helped make me happy again. Yet another zany race from the Trail Nerds.. this one was a fun 10K that started at 8 pm at Wyco Park... just in time for it to get nice and dark. I was so very excited to see my running friends and catch up on everything that had happened while I was away, and a race was the perfect opportunity to do so. I got to the park about 7:00, pulled in right next to Nick and Laurie and the fun began. I stood around and gossiped with everyone for awhile and then wandered over to get my number.... I requested number 69 and Shane was kind enough to dig through the stack and find it for me. Yes! I Love being totally juvenile sometimes!
While waiting in line I finally got to meet Kim & her husband Doug... I've been totally enjoying her blog for ages now and it was great to find out that she really does exist! That's a picture of the 2 of them... aren't they adorable? I've been harassing her to stop running on the pavement and just run trails with us, but they do so much good work with Team in Training it's really selfish of me to try and lure them away. I was rockin' my new Mud Babes technical shirt that Bad Ben had so awesomely dropped by my work earlier in the day and so were a ton of the other girls!

Ben gave us a 15 minute speech on all the stuff to look for and the usual warnings and then we were off into the twilight. I bought a new headlamp at REI when I was in Colorado, but hadn't tested it out yet, so it was with crossed fingers that I turned it on and stuck it on my head. It was a super fast start and I stupidly didn't think to warm up... too much socialization, and I didn't consider that it was a short race. It usually takes me a good 3 miles to warm up, so I was sucking some serious wind for awhile. The course was a small, usually muddy section from the Psycho Wyco course but sadly most of the mud on the course was dried into ankle breaking ruts so I was feeling a bit out of my element! By the time I hit the Triangle I was feeling more warmed up and felt pretty good whipping through the twisty section. There was a good 15 of us in a row and the glow of head lamps and flashlights through the super tight twisty sections was super cool to see. I wish I had had a video camera! By the time we got out of the triangle I was feeling great but for some reason the dark was fucking with my head and I was reluctant to pass anyone. I figured as soon as I stepped off the trail to pass I would fall on my ass, so I just stayed behind the conga line until the trail opened up on a hill and then I was able to get by a few people.
I finished 10th female... not my best effort but it was fun and showed me that I need to do a lot more running at night. I felt pretty timid and the LED light was messing with my vision, so maybe a combo of regular light and LED is the way to go. I will also wear a bandanna on my head underneath my headlamp, I was sweating so much it was slipping down. Afterwards everyone hung out and ate Popsicles and drank beer and socialized. I wish we could do 1 night race a month!

Thanks to the ever wonderful Dick Ross at seeKCrun.com for the pictures