If you had told me 2 years ago that I would one day voluntarily sign up for a trail race and one that had a water crossing at that, I would’ve laughed my head off. Even though I’ve been running the trails at Kennesaw Mountain, my one annual race was the Red Top Rumble and I’ve been perfectly happy with that. This weekend, things came together – no kid chauffeuring to do, no kid activity for me to be at, no swim meets, no single parenting, AND a friend who had signed up to run. And so I did too! 

This was a 10.7 mile trail race in the Cochran Mills Park at Palmetto, a 45-55min drive from my place in the suburbs of Atlanta. The race put on by local endurance coach Tony Hammett of Peak Racing, was small but fun! The weather was perfect and the single track trails were beautiful and not that technical. I ran with Barbara and as she was doing 3 trail races in 24 hours, she took it easy and I was able to keep up. 

The highlight of the race was water crossing – TWICE! With the rains we’ve had, the water was flowing quite a bit and I was a bit nervous. With my two left feet, I slipped even before I stepped into the water. But Dave of Big Peach Running Co. was on hand to give step by step instructions on crossing the water. With the weather being perfect, getting feet wet in the water wasn’t too bad, but I can’t imagine doing that in colder air temperatures! 

With my talent for taking the wrong turns on trails, it was good that there was plenty of markings and Barbara was up ahead to make sure I was on the right trail.

I achieved my first ever DFL (Dead F Last), until we found out much much much later that there was one straggler who finished. Never had I been so sorry to not finish last. Oh well, I tried!

This photo just tickles me – the RD was a sport to let me stand on that victorious DFL (before we all realized that there was one person still out there) and everything about the photo is so much fun!