On tuesday night I ran my first trail race of the year at Mendon Ponds Park. This was the first race of the 2025 Run Our Trails series, and I ran the three miles in 29:57. I came into the race on tired legs, so combined with the many hills that Mendon Ponds always has, I was actually pretty happy with my time.
The race came shortly after it had stopped raining, but the course was in surprisingly good condition. Mendon Ponds is always steep and technical, but knowing that the race was short I tried my best to push the pace. I was more steady than fast, but on trails I will take that. The final mile leveled off a bit, but without knowing exactly how far was left to run it was hard to determine when to kick for the finish.
My next race will be right back in the same spot (but over four times the distance) as I will be running Medved Madness on sunday.