Pickin apples and....oh yeah a race!

Waking up to a little chill in the air for a 9 miler/3 miler through the Orchards of Apple Hill. Good part is that the race was slated to being at 8:30am which gave the sun a little extra time to rise and warm us up before venturing through orchard-land. Another good/great part of this race is that Diane from Breakout Racing was the course director and she puts on a great race. Now that I got the plug in there for Diane, lets get to the meat of this little blog...
So onto the course we roll! There were actually a ton of people at this race. Way more lined up at the start/finish line than I was expecting. Hmm, looking around I saw some familiar faces, a lot of new faces, and a few faces that I know are fast fast fast! Brian from the Folsom Series was there and he dominated me at a race during that series but....who knows what today would bring. Okay, so we started up a little hill and then down we went onto the road and veered left into the orchards. Good thing it hadnt rained because it would have been a slippery mess but the trails/dirt roads were great! Up, down, up, down, up, down....Seemed to be the main theme of this little course. I will have to admit that my favorite part of the course came between mile 6 and 8 where we were truly running on trails through the trees. Awesome! That was about the time that we started catching some of the 3 mile runners/walkers but they were extremely courteous and knowledgeable about moving out of the way. I even saw some people pushing strollers at this point. Im not sure about this but I believe the word for them is CRAZY because it was tough enough without pushing the kiddos. More power to them, so congrats you crazy stroller pushers! Winding down and back around to the finish was cool with a downhill crossing of the finish line! Amen, race is over!
First place overall in a time of 58:11 which will work for today. A few kids went out fast and I couldn't believe it. I thought "damn, not again" but held my own and actually ran my race for a change. Maybe thats cause Chris B wasn't there and I wasn't trying to keep his fast ass in my sights. How weird, no matter how hard I tried that it didn't work anyways. Okay, so best part of all was that my parents ran the 3 miler. Dad, if you know Dad, thinks runners are crazy so.... He must be one of us crazy people now! Mom, well shes all jacked up with injuries, but shes amazing and ran it right along with pops! Congrats guys, love ya! They were there for the high 5 at the end of mine. What a perfect day! Pizza on the way home and a nap. Doesn't get much better than that.
Good luck at Rocklin Chris. Let me know how it goes. Peace out until next time!!!