The Wild Cat experience

This wild cat should not be mistaken for any exciting animal or sexual experiences 😉 The wild cat that we had the pleasure to encounter is related to a beautiful trail run in El Sobrante, that is organized by this amazing organization called Brazen Racing. I ran this course when my youngest was only 6 months old and for that reason I opted for the shorter distance of 10K. Now six years later I wanted to challenge myself for the half marathon that is quite hilly, strenuous and exhausting, but offers gorgeous views of the Bay as a reward! The elevation gain on this course is about 2400 feet. Ouch.

The morning of the race I met up with my running gals Lenka and Vladi. These two are holding me accountable for our weekend runs. I have to admit that without them I would just turn to the other side of my bed and keep dreaming. Raise your hand if you would want to wake up at 7 am on Saturday to go running if the temperature is in 30′ or 40′? Right? But if your two friends are waiting for you ready to hit the trail you don’t have an option.

The start time for the half marathon was 8 am and we wanted to be there early to pick up our bibs, stretch out a little bit and of course go potty 3 times before the race. When we met on Lafayette Bart station at 6:45 am we immediately got a taste of a nice cold gusty wind that usually accompanies the fog coming from the Pacific. We exchanged the looks and collectively agreed that this fog must go away by the time we reach the peaks of the Wild Cat region. It’s called being positive or optimistic or also a wishful thinking.

After we arrived at the race site, put our numbers on and got ready by the start line we knew deep down that we are not going to see any blue skies today or any beautiful views of the Bay. Oh well. We are here to run it whether it’s going to meet our expectations or not. The beginning of the race is tricky as it starts with a narrow, bottle neck like situation and leads to a very steep and long hill. At that time I felt fresh and ready to conquer it. As the race went on I felt less and less enthusiastic about it and the fact that I started out too fast wasn’t helping either. When I saw that the mark of 3 miles I actually wanted to cry because I was that ready to be done. After a little while I somehow recovered from my little crisis and started to embrace this challenge that I signed up for voluntarily and even paid for it with my own money 🙂 I even placed 33rd out of all runners (all 126 of them), 5th of all females and 2nd in my age category. Yay! All that hustle and struggle was well worth it and can’t wait for another great race…