Renegade #SummerTrailRun - Recap

Last night, I ran race # 2 in the Renegade Racing Summer Trail Run Series.

Registration was only $30, and included a barbecue afterwards (or a shirt, your choice).

The final race in the series is going to be held August 1st, and registration is still open at $30 for that one (increases to $33 after July 26th).

The course is a challenging loop from Cedar Grove Park in Tustin, and through Peter's Canyon.

The whole day was cloudy and cool, until the race started - and the sun came out just in time for us to climb up to the ridge.

 

 

Once you get to the ridge, it's a series of Hills. With a capital H. The next mile or so was a series of these hills - no flats, just continuous UP, with very little down (this is where we gained all of our elevation).

 

The views were terrible. I don't know why we run here.

At the last hill of the ridge, Kelly from Team Sparkle recruited and manned an otter pop station!

The elevation high point comes around 2.5, then you descend back into the canyon, and it's a slight downhill back to the finish. As soon as we made it off the ridge, the clouds rolled back in and it was cool again. That's cute.

My food and raffle tickets practically disintegrated in my pocket. Sorry to the volunteer that had to take that from me.

After the race, we stopped by the Renegade stage to say hi, and then grabbed some delicious food and hang out on the grass, being all sweaty and gross, watching a pretty sunset.

 

The goodie bags (which I didn't take a picture of because I'm lame) were AMAZING -great samples, including a 3-pack of Starbucks Via Iced Coffee. We're camping this weekend, and I was FOR REAL on my way to the store after the race to buy some of this stuff. What a happy coincidence! And, check out the cute bib!

Renegade consistently puts out GREAT events. I was pretty nervous going in - every time I run a trail race, I'm petrified that I'll be the very last person - but I had a fantastic time, and I'm glad I convinced Julie and Sheila to run with me. This was Julie's first trail race ever, and maaaaaaybe she'll try it again?

Overall, I did better than I anticipated doing. I wore the Pure Grit's again, and they were fantastic- I never felt like I was going to fall or slide around. The course reverses direction next time, and at first I was unsure that I would want to hit all those hills on the second half - but looking at my Garmin data, the reverse actually looks like it might be easier? Or I'm confused and have run-nesia.

me, Julie, Sheila post race, courtesy of Kelly (and stolen from Julie)

TL;DR - it was a great event, I had so much fun, it was a hard course, and I'll be back for the August 1st race. You should do it. You can register HERE.