Volkslauf 2010

Every year down at Ft. Leonard Wood the Marine Detachment puts on a 10K "fun" run through the woods in the area. This year I was finally in a position to run it (not being pregnant or having Tom gone). We got a team of girls together from the Centre here in Rolla where I work out. Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Before the sweat and mud: Our team of 5 (the Dirt Devils) and another team from Rolla who we know from the Centre who came to run it also.

At the starting line (left to right): Lisa Persicke, Michelle DuClos, Christine Thompson, me, and Kari Young.

And we're off (nice ponytail)!

Coming down the bank into the last river crossing (about 6.1 miles into the race).

The final stretch to the finish line. Go Team!

Wet and muddy, but finally finished!

Now that I have experienced the finer parts of trail running (it had just rained during the night), I think I am more of a girly girl runner. By the time we were finished we had run through mud, water, and who knows what else and my shoes were full of little rocks. I think I prefer a little bit cleaner run, but it was fun to experience it at least once in life. We tied for first place coming in at 1 hour and 8 minutes (which isn't really fast for a regular 10K, but great for this 10K with all the mud, hills and river crossings and doing it as a team). The other all girl teams who came after us were well behind us. I ran as fast as I could, but Christine and Lisa could have finished a lot sooner had they had a faster runner as a team mate.