Oktoberfest + 5K Trail Race

Last weekend, Kevin and I headed up to Placerville to visit Alisyn and to enjoy the Placerville Oktoberfest celebration. We got in pretty late on Friday night thanks to an accident on the highway and crazy backed up traffic, but when we arrived Alisyn surprised me at the door with a brownie birthday cake! It was fantastic and totally unexpected, I loved it. (My birthday is tomorrow so we celebrated a week early.)

Candles melted a bit before I took this, but aren't they great?!

On Saturday morning we headed to the Lake Natoma bike path for our long run. It's an 11 mile loop, although we took a couple of wrong turns and did 12.5 miles instead. I felt pretty darn crappy that morning, side cramp and stomach stuff, but I was happy to make it through two longer runs in a row. I like training on tired legs to build endurance. 

Post-run, we relaxed, ate food, and watched Unbreakable, the documentary about Western States from 2010. I already wanted to try a 50K, and now I REALLY want to. We headed to Oktoberfest around 3 pm, although sadly it was raining. We took our umbrellas and jackets and didn't let that spoil our fun, but the event was much less attended due to the rain.

Event highlights included new pint glasses, great German or German-style beers, wearing a pretzel, Alisyn doing a beer chugging contest, wiener dog races, and even a little polka and chicken dance with a live band. I'm a big polka fan - I'm Polish from both sides and grew up attending Polka dances on weekends with my extended family. 

 Convenient for carrying beer and my umbrella.

Alisyn, me, Kev hiding from the rain. (photo from Alisyn)

Alisyn was one of the top ones, but that girl on the far right was insanely fast.

On to the next day, a trail-ish 5K in El Dorado Hills called Making the Grade. This seemed like a fun idea until we had to wake up early on Sunday morning...although it ended up being a fun race. I didn't intend to race it (and thus didn't wear my Oiselle racing singlet) because I'd run 9.5 and 12.5 miles the two days before; I figured it would be a recovery run. I surprised myself and ran much better than I expected, not feeling nearly as tired as I expected.

The event was more cross country-like. We started on an old golf course in the grass, had some pavement on the golf cart path up a very big hill, some sidewalk down the other side, and then onto dirt and grass for the remainder. I was slow warming up the first mile and getting up the big hill, but after that I kicked it up a notch and pushed harder to the end. I feel happy with my time on this crazy course, 30:52. This was also good for 3rd in my age group! I don't age place often, so even in a small race I'm pumped about it. Alisyn took 2nd age group, and Kevin had 1st in his age group. Medals for all of us.

 Post-race, waiting for age group awards. (photo from Alisyn)

Female 30-34 age groupers, our new friend Christina took first.

Male 30-34 1st & 35-39 1st. Kev and Justin, who is Christina's husband. (photo from Alisyn)

This was a great small community event with proceeds going to the Buckeye Education Foundation. We stayed for the fundraiser lunch to support the event. Even the swag from the race was nice - both t-shirts and water bottles. Not bad for a $25 entry fee. 

Goodies.

Overall, very glad we went to this event. Great job to the organizers. That also completed another 37 mile week for me, so now I'll play the taper a game a bit into San Jose RnR on October 6. Hoping to go for the PR there!