This past Saturday, I, Mr. Marathon, had the privilege of participating in Patrick Henry Community College's inaugural 5K trail run: The Patriot Trail Run 5K. Many people were under the impression that it was just that: a trail run.
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| Waiting at the starting line |
However, they were mistaken. The intention of this race was to be a fitness challenge obstacle course along with a 5K trail run. On the course, there were various fitness stations, including a Burpee Station in case you wanted to taste last night's dinner (ew... yum?), a Jackknife Station to make ALL parts of your body (arms, legs, and abs) feel the pain/joy of being alive, a bucket-carry (buckets full of water.... not just regular buckets!), and many random other obstacles including jumbo-sized hay bales, low-crawls, a cargo net, and balance beams. Sounds like a lot, right? Well that's not all! Imagine all of these obstacles in addition to a 3.1 mile run on a very hilly terrain. It was quite a challenge! Oh, and to top it all off, I got lost. Hooray! So I ended up adding a little bit of mileage to my course.
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| Mr. Marathon and all the other winners |
But that didn't stop me. Despite all the challenges I encountered, I managed to make pretty good time of 23 minutes and 24 seconds, which got me the first place overall finisher! That's not bad for getting lost! It's also not bad that I got a pretty nice plaque to hang with my collection.
The next race for us will be the Star City Half-Marathon in 17 days! Today we took a 7-mile training run, so we'll see how that goes... Wish us luck!
