Clinton Lake 30

I am excited, Friday is Clinton Lake 30 mile! It's my first time running this race. I'm nervous and want to run a solid 30 miles. I've been training at Veterans Acres. It's my local forest preserve with about 8 miles of rolling, single track trails that I can mix up lots of different ways to keep it interesting. I've been working on running hills. I will never feel I have trained enough for hills and they will never be easy. But I'm showing up for race day full of confidence that I'm going to give the course 100% of my best effort. I will be happy finishing this race and knowing I gave it my all!

I made the 4 hour drive 2 weeks ago and did a practice run on the course. So glad I did! I read that the course was rolling hills around a natural lake. I've been to the Bloomington IL area and it is very flat farmlands. I thought "how hilly could the course be?". I had envisioned a course like Kettle Morraine 100, with not quite as many hills. I was wrong. It has many steep hills, rocky and slippery mud. I struggled running because of my feet slipping. The mud and hills were exhausting to my legs. Now that I've run the course I feel I'm more mentally prepared for the challenge It's a lot better knowing what your in for than thinking it's an easy rolling hills course. They haven't had as much rain so the course may have dried up. If that's the case the run will be easier. But I still feel better mentally prepared for the race. I am going to wear my Inov-8 Mudroc 290's. I think they will be a great help on the slippery muddy down hills. Plus giving me extra grip on the rocks. I will post a race report afterwords to let you know how they held up for me.