My First 10K (And My First Trail Race)

Me approaching a checkpoint. South Stack lighthouse visible in the background. The wind almost tore off my race number from my leg!

Today I completed my very first 10K race. It was also my very first trail race!

It involved dragging my backside up to the highest point of the island I grew up on. To say it was hard work would be an understatement! The climbs were steep, so steep even the serious fell-runners power-walked up them! The downhills were treacherous to say the least with loose rocks, mud, exposed roots, etc. And the wind. My God, the wind! I got properly sandblasted by the spray from the Irish Sea as well as nearly blown off my feet on occasion. To get a sense of it take a look at this screenshot from my RunKeeper page:

My actual time was 1:45:21 (I forgot to deactivate the auto pause feature!) 

The views though were spectacular! I lived on Anglesey for 18 years and never ventured up Holyhead Mountain before. It goes to show how little some of us know about our immediate surroundings. Certainly food for thought.

My finishing time was 1:45:21. I'm happy with that given that 2/3 of the course had me climbing from sea level to nearly 200m and that I had to seriously apply the brakes on many of the downhills! Not sure of my overall position, I'll learn that on Monday when all the results are collated. Do I care?...

Not especially, I'm just glad to have completed it!

My finishing time

All the commemorative paraphernalia, my race number, a red wristband, the slip with my time, a commemorative dog-tag and I even got the t-shirt!

My finisher's dog-tag

As arduous as I've made it sound, it was certainly good fun! Would I do it again?...

In a heartbeat!

Update 23/1/12 17:56:
The official results are in. I was 129th out of 146 runners.